Fallout Fallout: Aquila Renatus [AU]

[Navarro]

Will be updating this less regularly than Eagle And The Bear. Enjoy.

==*==

“When I left Vault 101, I hated myself – I was an exile and a murderer. I hated my father – he had abandoned me for no good reason, caused chaos in the Vault when he left. I hated the world – it had stripped away everything it had ever given me. I felt like my life had ended – in fact, it was yet to begin.”

- Waters of Life: A Memoir – by Col. Liam Walker (Ret.), US Army Rangers
Published 2301 by New Liberty Press (headquartered in Washington, District of Columbia, Columbia Commonwealth, United States of America)

14:00 EST, June 1 2277
The Capital Wasteland

To Liam Walker – who’d lived his entire life under the controlled artificial light of a Vault’s systems – the bright light of the sun was blinding at first. But then he saw it … a jaundiced sky over what looked to be a barren desert, small hardy shrubs and tufts of grass the only plant life that endured. His hands and face were covered in dried blood, as was the security baton in his hand. The blood of Vault 101’s former Overseer, who’d died not ten minutes ago, by his hands.

I was trying … I was trying to keep Amata safe, he thought. And now … and now she’ll never … never.

Never love me. I killed her father.

“Enough self-pity,” he muttered to himself. “I gotta find … some kind of civilisation out here. I gotta find my dad … I gotta give him a piece of my mind for the way he messed up everything.”

But even as he stumbled out of the Vault and out of the small valley in which its blast door was set, he was unbeknownst to him being watched.

--*--

Ainsley was not a sophisticated man. But he had a certain sort of cunning to him, one that had served him well in his chosen profession. The armour he wore was crude – rough sheets of metal and leather patched together patched together. But it did its job well enough for its purpose. Right now, Ainsley was preparing to hit their latest target, looking through the scope on his modded assault rifle.

Guy who sold it to me called it an R-91 or somethin’ like that, he mused. Doesn’t matter what it’s called, after I turned it on him and took all the rest of his stash. Fuckin’ moron got what he had comin’ to him.


The new meat looked fresh – he’d just wandered out of the Vault. And he has a mother-fuckin’ Pip-boy on him too. We take him alive, Paradise Falls is gonna pay me a sweet fortune for him. And if he dies, we can sell his stuff … or even use it for ourselves. I sure could use one of ‘em Pip-boys if the gang gets any larger.

--*--

The first hail of shots missed Walker completely, before he turned round to see the gang of thugs attacking him. They leered like savages as they advanced, firing their N99 pistols, 10mm caliber bullets whizzing past him. They weren’t able to hit the broad side of a barn, but even one shot could disable him … or even kill if it hit the right place. He drew his own pistol and fired off measured, aimed shots, drawing on the old memories of firing a BB gun at radroaches as a kid. First one raider dropped, then another. But their eyes were crazed and their mouths foaming, and they didn’t seem to care about casualties. Finally only their leader was left, his assault rifle dry of ammo.

Walker tried to shoot on him as he approached, only to hear hollow clicks. He reached into one of the pockets of his vault-suit, hastily managing to reload the gun just as-

Barking like a feral dog, the raider leapt up onto Walker and knocked him to the ground, trying to beat him into unconsciousness with the butt of his rifle. Walker struggled to try and get a shot on him with his free hand, knowing that even one good hit would lead to him being knocked unconscious and his fate, whatever it would be. Whether they sold him as a slave or cannibalised him, he didn’t want to find out.

In desperation Walker knocked the criminal backwards with a headbutt, then while he was stunned opened up with his pistol. Three merciless shots rang out into the raider’s head, blood fountaining from the exit wounds. He dropped like a stone, his eyes glazed over in death.

Looking over the dead raiders, Walker spat on them and took the ammo they’d had on them, along with the bottle-caps (17 in total) they’d collected for some reason. He took the R91 assault rifle as well, guessing he might need it in future to sell when he got to Megaton.

 

[Navarro]

Second part of chapter one.

==*==

Walker moved past the bodies of the slain bandits and looked onward. The brilliant light of a hot summer’s day was scarcely clouded by the jaundiced clouds above, and he could see a good long distance. And it was what he saw that hit him like a hammer-blow to the heart. He could plainly see that the great dome of the Capitol Building had fallen inwards, and the Washington Monument was skeletal, its internal girders glimmering in the sunlight. As a child he had seen photographs of the two great monuments in his classes in the Vault; he had possessed a secret hope that they had survived the apocalypse unscathed. That hope had plainly been mistaken.

He carried on walking through the charred skeletons of wooden houses, feeling the hot tarmac as his booted feet tramped across it. This had once been a suburb – if not prosperous, then at least liveable. Now it was nothing but rubble. He passed the corpse of an insect too large to be normal, a giant ant almost the size of a large dog. There were laser burns on its thorax – from what, he couldn’t tell. Past the ruins, a crudely-daubed sign pointing to his right spoke plainly:

“MEGATON”

As he climbed a small hill and then crested it, he saw the defences of the town for the first time. A wall of scrap and collected junk, rusted corrugated iron and parts of airframes welded and riveted together, incorporating the chassis of cars and trucks into its structure. The sun was noticeably lower in the sky by the time he reached the settlement’s gate. It opened with ease – as he passed through he noticed a protectron idly walking turning the corner of the wall, patrolling the perimeter of the ramshackle village.

The first thing he noted was the stench. The smells of noxious chemicals and human waste overwhelmed him, and he thought for a moment he would pass out. A dark-skinned man in a rough leather coat and a cowboy hat rushed to his aid, his skin weathered from many long years in the merciless wasteland. He had a thick grey beard and moustache, and an old pre-War police badge was crudely fixed to his clothing. A laser rifle was strapped to his back, and Walker felt a surge of envy.

“I can handle myself,” Walker protested, taking a deep breath.

“I just wanted to see if you were alright. Name’s Lucas Simms, town sheriff and mayor. You’ve got a rough look about you, young man. Not sure that I like it.”

“I’m fine, it’s just … outside takes getting used to.”

“You from the Vault nearby?”

“Yes,” Walker replied. It wasn’t as if it mattered any more, at any rate. “I … I left to find my father.”

“What for?”

“Payback. After what he did to me … to the Vault … when I meet with him, he’d better have a damn good reason for it all.”

Simms looked disturbed at that, but didn’t say anything or press the question.

“What’s this town’s name?” Walker asked.

“Megaton,” Simms replied. He pointed to a metal cone – rounded at the end – that lay half-buried in a pool of foul water at the centre of the town. An undetonated nuclear warhead, left over from the great exchange of 2077. In front of it was a man in ragged robes, his feet in the water, raving loudly about something or other – Walker couldn’t make out his words at this distance. The rest of the town was a demented scrapyard to which Walker could see no rhyme or reason.

“Over there’s Craterside Supply, for all your essentials travelling out in the wastes. Then at the south end there’s Moriarty’s Saloon – good place to drink and sleep, but don’t trust that man one inch. Clinic is right next to the bomb.”

“Any other towns near here?”

“Not, near here no, but there's Rivet City far to the south and others spread all around. The human race is stubborn like that. Not that I get out often – what with super mutant raiding parties, slavers, raiders, giant ants, and those new … floating robots that started showing up a few months back. Don’t know what they mean.”

“Maybe it’s something good, I don’t know.”

“Maybe,” Simms mused cynically.

First, Walker went to Craterside Supply. The shop was small and cramped, and it was filled with a cloying heat even in the late afternoon.

“Hi,” he said to the shopkeeper, an auburn-haired young woman.

“Good to meet you! My name’s Moira Brown, I’m the shopkeeper here.”

“My name’s Liam Walker, I’m from Vault 101."

“A Vault Dweller! You have any high-tech gizmos to sell? I don’t care if they cost a thousand caps, getting to-”

“Sadly, no,” Walker chuckled, feeling in somewhat better spirits – the girl’s enthusiasm was already seeming to be infectious.

“But I do have this,” he said, tossing out the R91 rifle he had taken from the dead raider boss. It was 400 caps – being in mint condition – and with that amount he was able to buy a decent amount more ammo for his N99 pistol, and some rad-x bottles and stim-paks, leaving him with 200 caps. That these people using bottle-caps for money made a certain amount of sense – they were unable to be counterfeited with this level of development. That certainly was true, but still carrying so many around was somewhat inconvenient. Moira also gave him a new vault-suit; with pieces of leather and metal sewn on, along with various pouches and pockets; free of charge.

“Made this myself,” she said. “About ten years ago. A girl from the vault came over, said she needed a suit with better protection for the wasteland, and handed one to me to modify. I never saw her again.”

“Do you have an idea what happened to her?” he asked.

“Most likely, what happens to so many who go our into the wasteland,” Moira replied. “I’ve seen it happen too often. Some fresh-faced youth goes out to prove his courage, a week later we find his corpse if we ever see him again. That’s why I’m working on a guide to survival out in the wastes, to make sure it’s safer for folks out in the wilderness. Would you care to try and help me finish it?”

“It’s an idea,” Walker said. “I wouldn’t be against it."

“That’s a yes?”

“… That’s a yes.”

With his new vault-suit on, Walker went over to Moriarty’s. The bar was dank and humid, shadowed and gloomy. The dim glow of candles scattered here and there was the only light. Occasionally the solitary electric bulb at the centre sparked into life, but a few seconds later it would inevitably fail once more.

Two men were arguing as Walker headed to the bar.

“The government can’t waste any more time comin’ to help us.”

“Government doesn’t exist any more, pal. What do you think is more likely – some scav broke into a warehouse and released a buncha robots with some looped recording on, or the ‘Fed’ral Government’ survived the Big One and is coming in at last to save the day? I bet you think they’ve got an army of power armoured soldiers with flying machines too. And in ten or twenty years we’re gonna be all celebratin’ the Fourth with parades and fireworks like they did in the old days?”

Walker turned over to talk to the second speaker, who was near to him.

“What’s that about?”

“Nathan here is a bit touched in the head. Thinks the new robots are some kind of sign that the Old World days are gonna be comin’ back again. What I wouldn’t give if they did, but that’s never gonna happen. World’s moved on. The past is the past.”

He ordered a beer from the bartender – Colin Moriarty, as he named himself. Remembering Simms’ advice, he kept a guarded tone throughout his attempts to make conversation and revealed as little as possible. Though the beer was warm, it was decent enough, and as he finished it he remembered bitterly his eighteenth birthday about a year ago, when he had shared his first drink with James. I couldn’t have imagined then- he felt a hand on his shoulder.

It belonged to a young woman with bright red-orange hair, dressed in a similar jumpsuit to Moira’s but pulled down to reveal her cleavage.

“New face, huh?” she said. “That doesn’t happen here often – and not always one so handsome.”

“Who’re you?” he asked.

“Nova,” she said. “I handle the … hospitality that Moriarty provides. It’s 80 caps for one night’s sleep here, 120 for that plus some … companionship.”

I gotta think of Amata, part of him insisted, while another part spoke up differently. She’ll never forgive you after what you did to her father. At least with this girl you can forget about it for a moment.

He handed over the 120 caps, and she led him upstairs to the room.

~*~

Walker woke up on the half-rotted mattress of the bed, surprised for a moment as he felt the touch of another body against his own … then remembered what had happened last evening.

Nova for her part was unembarrassed as she got up and efficiently got dressed with practiced ease. Walker was notably more disconcerted as he put his vault-suit back on.

“Last night, was that-” she asked, but he realised what she was saying and cut her off.

“Yes,” he replied shamefacedly.

“You have a girl?”

“I had a girl. Are you-”

“I get checked every week by Dr. Church. So, what brought you to Megaton?”

“I’m looking for my father.”

“I think a guy like you headed through town a day before you arrived. He was middle-aged, but his face was a lot like yours and he was wearing some kind of pre-War doctor’s outfit. He was in a hurry, though – didn’t spend the night. Kind of a shame.”

“You have any idea where he could have gone?”

“Moriarty would know – collecting dirt and selling it is his real business – but he wouldn’t give it to you for free.”

“I don’t think I have the money. Not after last night.”

“Well, then …” she found a piece of paper and wrote a word on it – DEFAULTPASSWORD.

“The password to Moriarty’s terminal. He’s most likely out of his room right now, so you can get in. But don’t let him anybody know I gave it to you, or he’ll beat me. Maybe even kill me, or toss me out.”

He nodded, and mused on the situation. What he’d done last night sure hadn’t been right, though it had felt good. But it had given him this chance to find out whatever James was up to, and he wouldn’t have passed up such an opportunity for the world. He carefully entered the password into a file on his pip-boy and tore the paper to shreds with his hands, leaving the pieces of it to rot with all the other random detritus on the room's floor.

As he prepared to leave, he heard Nova’s final words for him.

“Good luck out there.”

Even from a whore, he would take that kindness.

 

[Navarro]

He was in a hazy, indeterminate space, but somehow he still knew which direction was which. An eagle whose wings stretched to fill the sky was locked in combat with a great red serpentine dragon; as it fought its wings gradually turned to metal. In one final paroxysm of conflict, marked with a great flash of light, the eagle was badly wounded, and slunk away to hide on a metal island west of west – its feathers became all metal. He did not see what happened to the dragon. Eventually, the eagle prepared to give a cry – and he knew that cry would end the world all over again – but a bear cub swatted it away with its paw, and it was sent back east to the lands of sunrise. Dimly, shakily, the eagle slowly started to shed its metal feathers – but before it could begin more than the slightest a lion that had been lairing there fought it, and slew it.

The lion didn't last though – his fur gradually became metallic as well, even as he began to wither and starve. He ran to the north-east to hunt but his abandonment of his lair proved fatal. He returned badly wounded from his failed expedition and as he re-entered his lair ravens swarmed all over him and ripped him apart with their talons, then vanished.

To the west, the bear now full-grown matched up against a great blood-red bull with brazen horns. They fought for what seemed like an eternity, and the bull badly injured the bear and seemed about to win - then a coyote and a puma struck the bull from behind, and together with the bear they slew the bull and ate his flesh. The three victors made an accord, but it didn't last, and they started fighting over leftover bits of meat. As they were fighting-

Walker woke up panting and confused. What the Hell did all those animals fighting each other mean? For his new occupation as a caravan guard, this was some bizarre dream. He sighed. It’d been a week since he started the job, two days after leaving the Vault – he didn’t make many caps, but he wasn’t doing this for money. He needed combat experience and better equipment to survive in the city where his father had disappeared into. The place was a real no-man’s-land – not half as grand as how it’d been in the pre-War days. A pity I’ll never see it in its old glory, he mused.

He got up from his sleeproll and put it on one of the brahmins, which was pulling a cart full of excess food from the meagre farming settlements which struggled to get soil out of the cursed earth; parched and tainted with fallout and chemical waste, the ground could support only populations of a few hundred together in one place, at best. They were to exchange it for clean water, of which their destination had a far more than adequate supply. He could see it already on the horizon – a tall building of pre-War origin, surrounded by a ramshackle metal wall of wasteland type. It had been luxurious once, for sure, with elegant domes and a balcony round its centre. Now there were holes in the walls and broken windows, all covered in a patina of dust and dirt.

Thus faded the glory of the world.

“Tally ho!” cried a loud voice from the balcony, in an accent that Walker remembered had been used by the Romans in the pre-war holos he’d seen as a kid. Is this guy a-

His train of thought abruptly slid off its rails as a thunderbolt crack rang out from the man’s gun. A feral ghoul that had been idly walking by fell as the top of its head exploded, but even though the shot hadn’t been at them Walker still gave a start.

“Don’t you worry nothin’,” Eli, the leader of the caravan, commented. “That’s just one of ole Tenpenny’s quirks. Man’s half-mad if you ask me – says he came from all the way across the water to live here. Best to let an old man have his eccentricities.”

Eli’s deep twang was noticeable – the merchant captain was from the richer lands to the south, and hadn’t gone to the Capital Wasteland by choice. He’d been banished from his home city, and branded on the left cheek to ensure whatever crimes had caused such would be known wherever he went. As far north as here though, few knew what it indicated, which meant that in essence he had no known record – a fresh start to begin again.

The small group approached the gate of the compound – a relic from the Old World, unlike the rest of the wall surrounding it – cautiously, until the hired guns on top of it let down their weapons and opened their way in.