Tranquility Lane

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The countryside was nice and the plants were singing and the birds and the sun was almost down from the top of the sky- no, wait. Ellen put both hands over her face and blinked rapidly until the spinning sensation in her head stopped and her senses gave up reporting each others' data. When she dropped her hands the sun was still warm and bright, the slanting rays of an early summer day through leaves of tall trees. Tame trees, though, not the ecstatically scattered trees of Oasis- these trees grew in carefully tended plots of grass, bounded by white picket fences and strips of concrete that bordered on the black of young asphalt. And the trees and grass weren't the only things bounded by fences; there were houses, too, whole houses, tall and clean and solid-looking, as if they'd never been touched by weather or wind or fire in their lives. Between the houses there were cars, huge sedans sparkling with chrome and gleaming with freshly-cared-for paint, all their windows intact. Ellen had little doubt that any one of them would start instantly if someone sat in the driver's seat and did whatever it was you had to do to start a car. And, yes, there was music- whistling, though, human whistling from somewhere not that far away.

It was, Ellen realized with a shock, what Andale had been pretending to be: the world before. The spotless, pristine world before. Even the bench she was sitting on was-

Waaaaait.

Okay, she could understand the Anchorage sim dressing her in winterized body armor, but this sim was just being weird. It had dressed her in a dress. With an actual skirt. What, the Vault suit wasn't good enough? What was the matter with it, were the pant-legs dead or something? But that wasn't the worst of what the sim had done to her attire. It had taken away her Pip-Boy. Ellen held up her left arm, staring in fascination at the spotless, untouched skin of her forearm; it took her a moment to realize that not only was she not wearing her Pip-Boy here, but her hand itself looked wrong. Too small, too short-fingered, too-

"Hey there, sport!" came a man's voice, jerking her back to the sim in front of her. "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

The man was tall, at least twice Ellen's height, and bald, and dressed in the sort of button-down shirt and pleated trousers that the people of Andale must have wanted to emulate but never quite achieved. Ellen almost thought she could see the name 'George Nusbaum' hovering over his shoulder as he smiled at her. "Um," she said. Her voice didn't sound right, either, but she wasn't about to fuss any further. Maybe she could get some answers now. "It sure is, Mr. Nusbaum. Can you help me?"

"Well, I can sure try," Mr. Nusbaum said. "What's the matter, kiddo?"

Ellen suppressed her irritation at the term and instead smiled. "I can't find my father. Have you seen-"

Before she could finish the sentence, Mr. Nusbaum shook his head. "Sorry, sport," he said. "I haven't seen anybody your dad's age except Bill Foster and Roger Rockwell." Then he brightened. "Say, you should go talk to Betty! She's over there on the playground. Have fun, sport!"

He pointed towards a round island of grass and trees and odd structures in the middle of the encircling street, then turned and walked away. Ellen scowled, but let him go. Fine. If he hadn't seen Dad she'd just have to find him or Dr. Braun herself. She dusted her hands (dear God, it was weird not having the Pip-Boy's weight on her forearm any more) on her dress (even stranger, when it came right down to it) and set off down the... sidewalk, that was what Mr. Mills had called it... in search of someone more helpful. The next adult-sized person she encountered was a brown-haired woman in a blue-checked dress; she smiled benignly as Ellen approached. "Well, hi there!" she said as Janet Rockwell briefly appeared over her shoulder.

"Hi, Mrs. Rockwell," Ellen said. "What's going on?"

"Oh, it's a fine day, isn't it?" Mrs. Rockwell chirped. Ellen blinked, peering at the woman for some sign of head injury as Mrs. Rockwell continued. "Roger suggested we move here... I don't quite remember when that was. It's very nice. We're doing quite well."

"That's... nice," said Ellen, "but it isn't what I asked. What's going on here, please?"

"Nothing at all's going on, dear, it's a perfectly lovely day. Will you excuse me?"

As Ellen watched Mrs. Rockwell go, she wondered whether she had spoken to any actual humans yet. Perhaps Mr. Nusbaum and Mrs. Rockwell were just machine-generated personae, like the Chinese soldiers, and the actual humans were somewhere else. That, or something was very, very wrong here... She shook herself briefly and turned towards the playground. Maybe there was someone there she could actually talk to. Mr. Nusbaum had mentioned 'Betty', after- wait. Wait. Was that Dogmeat? "Oh, for-" She started running. "Dogmeat, don't tell me those robots got you stuck in here too!"

The black and white dog whurfed cheerfully, tail wagging ecstatically, and butted his head up against her as she crouched down to run her hand over his head. Ellen sighed. "Well, at least I know someone here," she muttered. "Don't try to eat anybody here, okay?"

"Oh! Someone new to play with!" came a young girl's voice from behind her. Ellen turned and caught sight of a yellow-haired girl with a broad smile, clutching a watering can in one hand. There was something familiar about her look that Ellen couldn't quite place. "What good luck I have lately! I was just starting to get bored. We're going to have so much fun!" the girl said.

"Okay," Ellen said slowly, "and you are...?"

The girl set her watering can down and clapped her hands together. "I'm Betty! I live here on Tranquility Lane. Want to play a game?"

Tranquility Lane; so that was where this place was. Well, unless this Betty was an actual human and not a computer-generated phantasm, Ellen didn't really want to talk to her. "What's going on?" she said instead.

"We're going to play a game now, silly," said Betty. "That's what's going on."

"I can't play any games now, I'm looking for my father," Ellen said a little more firmly.

Betty frowned. "Gee, I don't know. What's he like?"

"He's a scientist," Ellen said, "and he's as tall as Mr. Nusbaum. He's got grey hair, and a beard, and everyone tells me I look just like him. He came here looking for Dr. Braun..."

Her words trailed away as Betty burst into quiet giggles. "THAT's your daddy?" Betty said. "Oh, we're going to have SO much fun! This is going to be the best game ever!"

"No," Ellen said, and this time there was real vehemence behind it. "No. Games. Where. Is. My. Father."

"Oh, don't be mean," Betty said, and glared at Ellen. "That's not a good way to start. I SAID we're going to play a GAME, so that's what we're going to do."

"Fine," said Ellen, throwing up her hands. "Whatever. I give up. Let's hear about this game."

Betty beamed. "I knew you would! It's a really simple game. All you have to do is make Timmy Neusbaum cry."

"... what?" said Ellen, who couldn't possibly have heard that right.

"It'll be funny. Come on. You'll see. Make him cry, and then come back here and we'll talk some more."

Ellen stared at the other girl, who had a self-satisfied little smirk on her lips as she picked up her watering can. "What the- why should I do that?" she demanded. "And who's Timmy Neusbaum?"

Betty sniffed. "I'm not talking to you again until you make Timmy Neusbaum cry," she said, and deliberately turned her back to Ellen. As she settled to watering the flowers that grew around the playground equipment, she started ostentatiously whistling the tune Ellen had heard before.

Ellen resisted the urge to grab the other girl and shake her, instead stomping off to look for an adult to talk to. Dogmeat didn't follow her, but she supposed that was probably just as well; he at least had a nice soft patch of grass to lie on, even if there were no mole rats to chase. And she had to find someone who would talk to her, anyway.

There were plenty of adults around, at least, so that was something... just not very much. Roger Rockwell, Pat Neusbaum, Martha Simpson, Bill Foster- they all seemed about as helpful as Mrs. Rockwell had been, and as doggedly determined to encourage her to enjoy the day. She grew frustrated enough with their placidly cheerful responses to her questions that when Mr. Foster turned to walk away she shouted out, "Nice simulation, isn't it?"- but he only laughed at her, congratulated her on a good imagination, and kept walking. Honestly, it was enough to drive a girl to bang her head against the nearest wall.

She turned to look for one, since for all she knew it might draw the attention of an actual human instead of one of these phantoms. Her eyes fell on something much closer than a house wall, though- a boy of about her own size, seated on a stool, with a big crate pulled up in front of him. There were six or seven cups half-filled with liquid on the crate, all grouped together. As she approached she saw a sign on the front of the crate that read "LEMONADE- FIFTY CENTS". The boy saw her looking and smiled. "Hi there! I'm Timmy," he said. "Wanna play?"

Ellen froze for an instant, both at the question and at the sight of the words Timmy Neusbaum appearing over his shoulder. Then she took a deep breath. "Betty says I should make you cry," she said. "Any idea why she'd want me to do that?"

Timmy blinked, taken aback. "What? No she didn't... did she?" he said. At Ellen's nod he stuck out his bottom lip. "I don't like her," he declared. "She's creepy, and she laughs at stuff that isn't funny."

"I think I agree with you," Ellen murmured. "Well, don't worry, I'm not going to do it just because some weird little girl said so." It would, she thought, be like punching a baby.

"Thanks!" said Timmy brightly.

"You're welcome," Ellen said. And then- who knew, Timmy seemed to be real- she tried, "Have you seen my dad? Gray hair, beard, tall, looks like me?"

Timmy frowned and shook his head. "Nope- did he get lost?"

"I... yes. Yes, I think he did," said Ellen.

"Then I sure hope you find him soon," said Timmy. "See ya!"

Ellen walked away, shaking her head. One real person- two, maybe, if Betty was real- among all these brainless phantoms. Where were the actual humans? Where was Dr. Braun? She would- She stopped, and clapped a hand over her face. The houses. Of course. She'd only spoken to the people wandering around on the street yet; no doubt the actual humans were somewhere indoors. Squaring her shoulders, she strode up to the first door and knocked.

Nothing.

She tried again. Still nothing.

The door was unlocked, so she peered inside, but the house gave every impression of being empty.

It was the same at the next house, and the next. The fourth one had a lone inhabitant, a Mr. Handy hovering in the kitchen, but it didn't seem to be able to say much beyond "How may I serve you, Mistress?", so Ellen walked away from it. The fourth house looked progressively less and less promising as she headed up the walk, but she didn't see what her choices were otherwise. She had to try. She raised a hand, rapped at it, got no response, opened the door- and sagged in relief; there was someone here, in the back room. "Hello?" she called out. "Um. Hello?"

The person in the back, an elderly woman in a faded green dress, gasped and whirled around to face Ellen. "You!" she cried. "You don't belong here! What are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry," said Ellen, backing up immediately. "I was looking for-"

"This isn't real," the woman (Mrs. Dithers, according to her shoulder-words) continued. "None of this is real. It needs to end! The suffering must end!"

"You- what?" said Ellen, blinking. "You know it's not real?"

Mrs. Dithers shook her head, a tight, frantic gesture. "We're not really here. We're not really talking. It's all made-up, make-believe. We're sleeping, dreaming." She gestured wildly at the door to the outside. " The dream became a nightmare. It has to end, it just has to! But we're not in charge- he is, and he doesn't want us to wake up."

"He," repeated Ellen, prickles running up her spine.

Mrs. Dithers' eyes narrowed. "He calls himself Betty now, but he's stil the same. He can put on a new face all he likes, but underneath he's still evil. Braun." She spoke the name with a force most people reserved for obscenity.

"Wait- what-" Ellen's words had failed her. Braun was Betty? The genius her father had been hunting all this time? And- what- evil? What?

"Bastard thinks because he helped create this place he's God here- but I know he still uses the failsafe terminal. I know it."

"... failsafe terminal," Ellen managed. She couldn't speak anything else.

"In the abandoned house," Mrs. Dithers all but whispered. "He doesn't want us going in there, in case we find it. It's the only terminal to the outside- the only way to shut the whole thing down. You've got to find it."

"Abandoned- but they're all-" No, they weren't, were they? Just empty. People were doing other things. "Okay."

"Find it!" hissed Mrs. Dithers, and all but shoved Ellen out the door.