The Capital Wasteland
Sep. 3rd, 2009 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aaaaaaaagh_skyIt felt as if Ellen had been walking forever. As far as she knew, she hadn't gotten much farther than the vicinity of Minefield; a quick check of her Pip-Boy confirmed it. But the sun was high overhead, and all the sky in every direction was an unnervingly empty blue, and when the winds breezed past her they did so with a sluggish, tired feel, as if they'd come some unimaginably vast distance. They did nothing to dispel the hammering heat, either. It was almost enough to make her wish she could get away with not wearing her armor.
It didn't help, either, that she'd turned off Three Dog's broadcast a while back. His music wasn't bad- repetitive maybe, but nobody who played Billie Holiday could really go wrong. It was the news broadcasts. Warnings about raiders and mutants and the need to be cautious about radiation set her on edge. Every little movement at the corner of her vision became a spike-wearing maniac with a sledgehammer and an urge for blood. Alertness was one thing, but paranoia was another, so she'd turned his messages off… and been left alone with nobody but Dogmeat in the rolling, rocky empty spaces of the Capital Wasteland.
She glanced down at the dog. He seemed completely unfazed by the vastness that surrounded them on every side. Given that he must have been living on the surface his whole life, Ellen found that reassuring. In a silence broken only by footfalls and the rustling of the sere, brown-yellow stuff that passed for grass, it was very easy to lose track of the things that kept panic at bay. If he could do it, so could she.
(Then again, the part of her that was still a doctor's daughter pointed out that Dogmeat's brain was probably not much larger than her fist. She ignored that line of thinking as best she could.)
They'd been walking without pause more or less since Megaton. Up ahead there loomed the crumbling remains of some ancient industrial building, the ruined spires of what might have once been some kind of exhaust pipes thrusting skyward. It looked like a reasonable enough spot to stop and sit with one's back to the wall; she looked down at the dog again. "Hey, Dogmeat," she said. "What do you say we eat lunch once we get to that building?"
Whether Dogmeat really understood her or not Ellen couldn't say, but the word 'eat' had been in there, and that was apparently enough. Dogmeat barked joyfully and picked up his pace, and Ellen followed.
Half an ancient Salisbury steak-meal later, Ellen decided to try the radio on her Pip-Boy one more time. Yes, sitting in a shadow with her back to the wall, Dogmeat close by, was comforting- but the silence ran deep, and she kept thinking she could hear the nasty wet breathing of mad ghouls. Dogmeat seemed quite capable of keeping watch even while gnawing on his jerky. She could afford a little music. She flicked the radio on-
A burst of harsh static crackled across what should have been Three Dog's voice. Dogmeat's head jerked up, his ears pricked sharply forward as he stared at the Pip-Boy. "I don't know either," Ellen admitted. "I thought we fixed… the…"
She trailed off; a high, nasal voice like a small child holding its nose had started calling out over the static. It spouted a handful of unintelligible nonsense phrases and then went silent. A few moments later it repeated itself, and then a third time.
"You know," Ellen said to Dogmeat, "the last time I heard anything even remotely like that, I almost got killed."
Dogmeat cocked his head curiously. His expression betrayed no sign of understanding.
"On the other hand," she continued, "that's how I got my armor, and my rifle and sword…"
She chewed her lip as the voice yammered again. Paladin Hoss had indicated that north was a dangerous direction, with more Deathclaws and yao guai than almost anywhere else he could think of. Whoever was calling out on the radio didn't speak English, but that could mean anything- up to and including it being some kind of signal device dropped by a Red Chinese spy before the war. And the Chinese had made her armor, after all.
The thought of an abandoned weapon cache, rather than one crawling with mutants and Outcasts, was mighty appealing. She didn't say anything else to Dogmeat, but she did put some effort into finishing both food and water more quickly.
The signal was getting stronger. Ellen was sure of that now. It had taken her a while to triangulate on the source, mostly because she'd had to go quite a long way out of her way to get a second reading without being viciously assaulted by scorpions, but she had her bearing at last. Unless she was very much mistaken, the signal source was on the far side of the hill she and Dogmeat were climbing now.
She paused, catching a whiff of smoke, and glanced down at her companion. "What do you think, Dogmeat?" she asked. "Does that smell like trouble to you?"
Dogmeat sneezed.
"Was that a good sneeze or a bad-" Ellen's voice cut out on her; she'd reached the top of the hill and seen what lay beyond. There had been a house here once, long ago. It might've still been standing there if it weren't for the wide, burnt-edged crater ploughed down the middle- ploughed by something shiny and metallic, easily twice the width of her Megaton house. Trickles of smoke were snaking their way upwards from the thing, obscuring her view, but Ellen would have sworn it was round- no, not round, disc-shaped-
Saucer-shaped.
A big, metallic, shining silver saucer had struck this place from the sky. How many times had she asked green people in Milliways if they were aliens? And now this…
It occurred to her that the flash of green light that had greeted her and Tyler on the way out of the Mechanist's lair had come from this approximate direction. She still had the weird pistol from that explosion, tucked into the top of her pack on the chance that she might need it in a hurry. Could it have come from this thing? Could it have been shed during the crash? Could there be others?
"Dogmeat," Ellen said hoarsely, "I think we need to investigate."
She eased her pack down far enough on one shoulder to pull out the pistol first. There were too many holovids in the Vault where the aliens turned out to be immune to bullets; she didn't want to chance them being immune to the Gauss rifle, too. If they made guns like this, they probably used them on each other, right? So if anything were still alive in there, the odd pistol was her best chance. Reassured by her reasoning, she started picking her way down the hillside.
Ellen paused at the crater's lip, though- her Pip-Boy's Geiger counter was starting to tick. Slowly, but it was still ticking. Not a good sign, although probably one she should have expected. It wasn't as if spaceships could travel on gasoline or coal, after all. There was probably a breached fission battery in there somewhere… well, if she was quick about it she'd probably be all right. That was what the Rad-Away in her bag was for- oh! Oh, that was right, she'd brought a few doses of Rad-X just in case the Vault was in an irradiated zone. Relieved at the memory, Ellen dug out the bottle and one of the water containers. A few swallows and grimaces later, she resumed her progress forward towards the- yes, it was little, it was green, it had to be an alien in the middle even if it was obviously dead, this was so incredible-
And then the light sprang into life all around her, and there was a strange wind from every direction, and she barely even had time to scream.
It didn't help, either, that she'd turned off Three Dog's broadcast a while back. His music wasn't bad- repetitive maybe, but nobody who played Billie Holiday could really go wrong. It was the news broadcasts. Warnings about raiders and mutants and the need to be cautious about radiation set her on edge. Every little movement at the corner of her vision became a spike-wearing maniac with a sledgehammer and an urge for blood. Alertness was one thing, but paranoia was another, so she'd turned his messages off… and been left alone with nobody but Dogmeat in the rolling, rocky empty spaces of the Capital Wasteland.
She glanced down at the dog. He seemed completely unfazed by the vastness that surrounded them on every side. Given that he must have been living on the surface his whole life, Ellen found that reassuring. In a silence broken only by footfalls and the rustling of the sere, brown-yellow stuff that passed for grass, it was very easy to lose track of the things that kept panic at bay. If he could do it, so could she.
(Then again, the part of her that was still a doctor's daughter pointed out that Dogmeat's brain was probably not much larger than her fist. She ignored that line of thinking as best she could.)
They'd been walking without pause more or less since Megaton. Up ahead there loomed the crumbling remains of some ancient industrial building, the ruined spires of what might have once been some kind of exhaust pipes thrusting skyward. It looked like a reasonable enough spot to stop and sit with one's back to the wall; she looked down at the dog again. "Hey, Dogmeat," she said. "What do you say we eat lunch once we get to that building?"
Whether Dogmeat really understood her or not Ellen couldn't say, but the word 'eat' had been in there, and that was apparently enough. Dogmeat barked joyfully and picked up his pace, and Ellen followed.
Half an ancient Salisbury steak-meal later, Ellen decided to try the radio on her Pip-Boy one more time. Yes, sitting in a shadow with her back to the wall, Dogmeat close by, was comforting- but the silence ran deep, and she kept thinking she could hear the nasty wet breathing of mad ghouls. Dogmeat seemed quite capable of keeping watch even while gnawing on his jerky. She could afford a little music. She flicked the radio on-
A burst of harsh static crackled across what should have been Three Dog's voice. Dogmeat's head jerked up, his ears pricked sharply forward as he stared at the Pip-Boy. "I don't know either," Ellen admitted. "I thought we fixed… the…"
She trailed off; a high, nasal voice like a small child holding its nose had started calling out over the static. It spouted a handful of unintelligible nonsense phrases and then went silent. A few moments later it repeated itself, and then a third time.
"You know," Ellen said to Dogmeat, "the last time I heard anything even remotely like that, I almost got killed."
Dogmeat cocked his head curiously. His expression betrayed no sign of understanding.
"On the other hand," she continued, "that's how I got my armor, and my rifle and sword…"
She chewed her lip as the voice yammered again. Paladin Hoss had indicated that north was a dangerous direction, with more Deathclaws and yao guai than almost anywhere else he could think of. Whoever was calling out on the radio didn't speak English, but that could mean anything- up to and including it being some kind of signal device dropped by a Red Chinese spy before the war. And the Chinese had made her armor, after all.
The thought of an abandoned weapon cache, rather than one crawling with mutants and Outcasts, was mighty appealing. She didn't say anything else to Dogmeat, but she did put some effort into finishing both food and water more quickly.
The signal was getting stronger. Ellen was sure of that now. It had taken her a while to triangulate on the source, mostly because she'd had to go quite a long way out of her way to get a second reading without being viciously assaulted by scorpions, but she had her bearing at last. Unless she was very much mistaken, the signal source was on the far side of the hill she and Dogmeat were climbing now.
She paused, catching a whiff of smoke, and glanced down at her companion. "What do you think, Dogmeat?" she asked. "Does that smell like trouble to you?"
Dogmeat sneezed.
"Was that a good sneeze or a bad-" Ellen's voice cut out on her; she'd reached the top of the hill and seen what lay beyond. There had been a house here once, long ago. It might've still been standing there if it weren't for the wide, burnt-edged crater ploughed down the middle- ploughed by something shiny and metallic, easily twice the width of her Megaton house. Trickles of smoke were snaking their way upwards from the thing, obscuring her view, but Ellen would have sworn it was round- no, not round, disc-shaped-
Saucer-shaped.
A big, metallic, shining silver saucer had struck this place from the sky. How many times had she asked green people in Milliways if they were aliens? And now this…
It occurred to her that the flash of green light that had greeted her and Tyler on the way out of the Mechanist's lair had come from this approximate direction. She still had the weird pistol from that explosion, tucked into the top of her pack on the chance that she might need it in a hurry. Could it have come from this thing? Could it have been shed during the crash? Could there be others?
"Dogmeat," Ellen said hoarsely, "I think we need to investigate."
She eased her pack down far enough on one shoulder to pull out the pistol first. There were too many holovids in the Vault where the aliens turned out to be immune to bullets; she didn't want to chance them being immune to the Gauss rifle, too. If they made guns like this, they probably used them on each other, right? So if anything were still alive in there, the odd pistol was her best chance. Reassured by her reasoning, she started picking her way down the hillside.
Ellen paused at the crater's lip, though- her Pip-Boy's Geiger counter was starting to tick. Slowly, but it was still ticking. Not a good sign, although probably one she should have expected. It wasn't as if spaceships could travel on gasoline or coal, after all. There was probably a breached fission battery in there somewhere… well, if she was quick about it she'd probably be all right. That was what the Rad-Away in her bag was for- oh! Oh, that was right, she'd brought a few doses of Rad-X just in case the Vault was in an irradiated zone. Relieved at the memory, Ellen dug out the bottle and one of the water containers. A few swallows and grimaces later, she resumed her progress forward towards the- yes, it was little, it was green, it had to be an alien in the middle even if it was obviously dead, this was so incredible-
And then the light sprang into life all around her, and there was a strange wind from every direction, and she barely even had time to scream.