Abraham Washington
Jan. 27th, 2010 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aaaaaaaagh_skyDad was with Dr. Li. They were working on an experiment, Ellen told herself firmly. A late-running, very complicated, GECKtech experiment. One that non-participants couldn't be allowed to witness, just in case they did something that interfered. Yes. That was it.
Even Ellen had to admit that she was a terrible liar.
Well, Dad would come and talk to her when they were done. With the experiment. In the meantime... in the meantime, she had to admit, the situation wasn't great. She had no Commonwealth tech to show for her efforts, despite Zimmer's promises. She'd sold all her spare equipment at the marketplace, except for the alien guns; Flak had no use for weapons that had no earthly ammo. The remainder of her Brotherhood reward money had gone towards paying off her Milliways bill. The money she'd gotten from Regulator HQ, while nice, wasn't nearly as much as she needed. Reilly's gratitude would only net so much of a discount- the woman was, after all, a mercenary, not an armed and armored charity. It was starting to look to Ellen like she'd have to head back to Regulator HQ and ask for the bounty list. There were people in the Wasteland dangerous enough to have killed not only everyday settlers, but Regulators who'd gone after them, or even the occasional Brotherhood member. Any one of them would easily net a thousand caps or more for whoever survived the encounter. She'd heard whispers about the man with his name at the top of the list, a raider named Junders Plunkett, and how he wore the fingers of Regulators he'd killed around his neck...
If she was going to do that, though, she was going to need serious help. She'd start with a visit to the local chapel. St. Monica's seemed pretty normal, aside from Father Clifford's prohibition on priests or acolytes marrying. It was the only house of worship she'd found in the Wasteland yet that didn't make her eye twitch. She'd stop there and pray a little before getting her armor tuned up and heading out. Times like this, she really missed Reverend Avellone; Father Clifford would just have to do. She turned away from the science lab, her hand still on the wheel that opened and closed the great metal door. Her eye fell on a sign she'd walked past a dozen times since coming to Rivet City: Capitol Preservation Society.
Well. She didn't have to run out and pray about risking her neck just yet, did she? Father Clifford was probably busy anyway. She'd... check the place out. It wouldn't take long. It might be interesting. It beat getting her fingers cut off. She opened the door.
She didn't know what she'd expected, but the intact silver airplane hanging from the ceiling, its wings stretching out at a height she could practically have walked onto, wasn't it. As she shook herself free of the shock, she saw that it was a two-storey room. Most of the upper walls were plastered with prewar posters. They came in all kinds: Mr. Handy Recommends Abraxo Cleaner!, Lend A Hand For Uncle Sam- Enlist Today, Captain Cosmos and Jingles the Moon Monkey (Thursdays at 8:00 PM), Freddy Fear's House of Scares (For All Your Halloween Needs), Vault-Tec: We'll Be There!, Giddyup Buttercup Life-Size Robotic Ponies (Every Girl's Fantasy Now A Reality!). One called for volunteers at the local hospital with the slogan "You Don't Need A Howitzer To Be A Hero". Another urged the curious to come to the Museum of Technology to see the Virgo 11 Lunar Lander. A man in red robes trimmed in flecked white hawked Radiation King Radios and Televisions next to a poster bragging about Sugar Bombs Cereal's explosive great taste. She'd never seen so many ancient papers in one place before.
"If you think those are impressive," came a reedy tenor voice from the floor below, "you should see the real stars of the collection."
Ellen turned to peer over the railing. The speaker stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by tables weighed down with radios and books and other objects she couldn't identify. He had grey hair, and wore a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. As she made her way down the stairs he added, "Don't be shy. Feel free to have a look around... Abraham Washington's the name. Curator of this little slice of American history."
"It's very interesting," Ellen said; she was half interested in him, and half in the odd little white house with a slanting red roof behind him. It didn't look like it could house anything much larger than Dogmeat. "I haven't seen anything like some of this except in old vids."
"Ah, a fellow scholar, I see!" Washington brightened. "Each of the documents in this room tells a small but important part of the history of the United States of America."
"Documents?"
Washington gestured to the fourth wall, the one with no posters. Ellen had skipped it, thinking the brown patches to be rust. As she drew closer she realized they were framed bits of paper, or something like it. The nearest one looked like little more than a typed letter, but she leaned in close enough to make out the faded words- "Sir?" she said. "Is this what I think it is?"
"That's the United States' original declaration of war against the People's Republic of China," Washington agreed.
"Wow. And this...." She looked at the one next to it. "Where did you get this one? This is from the twentieth century!"
"The declaration of war against Nazi Germany is hardly the oldest document in the collection," Washington said cheerfully. "Do look up, won't you?"
It took some squinting, and the light from her Pip-Boy, but Ellen managed to read enough of the others to recognize documents she'd only ever heard of in her classes with Mr. Brotch. There was a copy- maybe a handwritten one!- of the Constitution of the United States. Below it hung a copy of what she was almost sure was the Monroe Doctrine, flanked by papers Hannibal Hamlin would have given his arms and legs to own. "Are these really the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation?" she said.
"I certainly hope so," said Washington. "I paid a good deal of money for someone to get these out of the old Archives for me. I'm just sad to be short the one really vital document that belongs in this collection."
Ellen glanced over her shoulder at that, and then at the wall. There were only so many other documents that ranked in the same league as the Constitution, if her historical knowledge was right. "What, you really think there's a Declaration of Independence out there somewhere?"
"Not just somewhere," Washington said. "Right here in the DC ruins itself. Your knowledge of American History is most impressive."
"I grew up in a Vault," Ellen said. "I had a very good teacher."
"So I see." Washington adjusted his glasses. "You can understand, then, why I lament the lack of the Declaration? What an amazing crown jewel that would be! The original document created by the people, for the people."
Ellen looked at the wall again for a while. "It sounds," she said slowly, "like you know where it is."
"Most assuredly," Washington said. "The National Archives building was reinforced before the War to stand up to just about any kind of attack you could mention. All of these papers came from its underground strongrooms."
"mm." Ellen considered the declaration of war on China a moment. "You said you paid for them? Is there someone selling the Archive's contents?" It sounded like something the Brotherhood might be interested in.
"Oh, no," Washington said. "No, there was a young woman who specialized in finding relics in the ruins; I paid her to bring back each one of these. Unfortunately, she's taken her caps and gone off to retire somewhere, damn the luck."
Mr. Brotch, Ellen felt, would probably want the documents preserved and safe. If they had lasted hundreds of years in the Archives, they'd probably last even longer left alone. On the other hand, left there, no one would ever see them, let alone remember or appreciate the contents.
And- she hated thinking it, but there it was- Washington had mentioned caps. Documents didn't cut your fingers off...
"That's a shame," she said slowly. "For her, anyway. What sort of pay were you giving her?"
Even Ellen had to admit that she was a terrible liar.
Well, Dad would come and talk to her when they were done. With the experiment. In the meantime... in the meantime, she had to admit, the situation wasn't great. She had no Commonwealth tech to show for her efforts, despite Zimmer's promises. She'd sold all her spare equipment at the marketplace, except for the alien guns; Flak had no use for weapons that had no earthly ammo. The remainder of her Brotherhood reward money had gone towards paying off her Milliways bill. The money she'd gotten from Regulator HQ, while nice, wasn't nearly as much as she needed. Reilly's gratitude would only net so much of a discount- the woman was, after all, a mercenary, not an armed and armored charity. It was starting to look to Ellen like she'd have to head back to Regulator HQ and ask for the bounty list. There were people in the Wasteland dangerous enough to have killed not only everyday settlers, but Regulators who'd gone after them, or even the occasional Brotherhood member. Any one of them would easily net a thousand caps or more for whoever survived the encounter. She'd heard whispers about the man with his name at the top of the list, a raider named Junders Plunkett, and how he wore the fingers of Regulators he'd killed around his neck...
If she was going to do that, though, she was going to need serious help. She'd start with a visit to the local chapel. St. Monica's seemed pretty normal, aside from Father Clifford's prohibition on priests or acolytes marrying. It was the only house of worship she'd found in the Wasteland yet that didn't make her eye twitch. She'd stop there and pray a little before getting her armor tuned up and heading out. Times like this, she really missed Reverend Avellone; Father Clifford would just have to do. She turned away from the science lab, her hand still on the wheel that opened and closed the great metal door. Her eye fell on a sign she'd walked past a dozen times since coming to Rivet City: Capitol Preservation Society.
Well. She didn't have to run out and pray about risking her neck just yet, did she? Father Clifford was probably busy anyway. She'd... check the place out. It wouldn't take long. It might be interesting. It beat getting her fingers cut off. She opened the door.
She didn't know what she'd expected, but the intact silver airplane hanging from the ceiling, its wings stretching out at a height she could practically have walked onto, wasn't it. As she shook herself free of the shock, she saw that it was a two-storey room. Most of the upper walls were plastered with prewar posters. They came in all kinds: Mr. Handy Recommends Abraxo Cleaner!, Lend A Hand For Uncle Sam- Enlist Today, Captain Cosmos and Jingles the Moon Monkey (Thursdays at 8:00 PM), Freddy Fear's House of Scares (For All Your Halloween Needs), Vault-Tec: We'll Be There!, Giddyup Buttercup Life-Size Robotic Ponies (Every Girl's Fantasy Now A Reality!). One called for volunteers at the local hospital with the slogan "You Don't Need A Howitzer To Be A Hero". Another urged the curious to come to the Museum of Technology to see the Virgo 11 Lunar Lander. A man in red robes trimmed in flecked white hawked Radiation King Radios and Televisions next to a poster bragging about Sugar Bombs Cereal's explosive great taste. She'd never seen so many ancient papers in one place before.
"If you think those are impressive," came a reedy tenor voice from the floor below, "you should see the real stars of the collection."
Ellen turned to peer over the railing. The speaker stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by tables weighed down with radios and books and other objects she couldn't identify. He had grey hair, and wore a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. As she made her way down the stairs he added, "Don't be shy. Feel free to have a look around... Abraham Washington's the name. Curator of this little slice of American history."
"It's very interesting," Ellen said; she was half interested in him, and half in the odd little white house with a slanting red roof behind him. It didn't look like it could house anything much larger than Dogmeat. "I haven't seen anything like some of this except in old vids."
"Ah, a fellow scholar, I see!" Washington brightened. "Each of the documents in this room tells a small but important part of the history of the United States of America."
"Documents?"
Washington gestured to the fourth wall, the one with no posters. Ellen had skipped it, thinking the brown patches to be rust. As she drew closer she realized they were framed bits of paper, or something like it. The nearest one looked like little more than a typed letter, but she leaned in close enough to make out the faded words- "Sir?" she said. "Is this what I think it is?"
"That's the United States' original declaration of war against the People's Republic of China," Washington agreed.
"Wow. And this...." She looked at the one next to it. "Where did you get this one? This is from the twentieth century!"
"The declaration of war against Nazi Germany is hardly the oldest document in the collection," Washington said cheerfully. "Do look up, won't you?"
It took some squinting, and the light from her Pip-Boy, but Ellen managed to read enough of the others to recognize documents she'd only ever heard of in her classes with Mr. Brotch. There was a copy- maybe a handwritten one!- of the Constitution of the United States. Below it hung a copy of what she was almost sure was the Monroe Doctrine, flanked by papers Hannibal Hamlin would have given his arms and legs to own. "Are these really the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation?" she said.
"I certainly hope so," said Washington. "I paid a good deal of money for someone to get these out of the old Archives for me. I'm just sad to be short the one really vital document that belongs in this collection."
Ellen glanced over her shoulder at that, and then at the wall. There were only so many other documents that ranked in the same league as the Constitution, if her historical knowledge was right. "What, you really think there's a Declaration of Independence out there somewhere?"
"Not just somewhere," Washington said. "Right here in the DC ruins itself. Your knowledge of American History is most impressive."
"I grew up in a Vault," Ellen said. "I had a very good teacher."
"So I see." Washington adjusted his glasses. "You can understand, then, why I lament the lack of the Declaration? What an amazing crown jewel that would be! The original document created by the people, for the people."
Ellen looked at the wall again for a while. "It sounds," she said slowly, "like you know where it is."
"Most assuredly," Washington said. "The National Archives building was reinforced before the War to stand up to just about any kind of attack you could mention. All of these papers came from its underground strongrooms."
"mm." Ellen considered the declaration of war on China a moment. "You said you paid for them? Is there someone selling the Archive's contents?" It sounded like something the Brotherhood might be interested in.
"Oh, no," Washington said. "No, there was a young woman who specialized in finding relics in the ruins; I paid her to bring back each one of these. Unfortunately, she's taken her caps and gone off to retire somewhere, damn the luck."
Mr. Brotch, Ellen felt, would probably want the documents preserved and safe. If they had lasted hundreds of years in the Archives, they'd probably last even longer left alone. On the other hand, left there, no one would ever see them, let alone remember or appreciate the contents.
And- she hated thinking it, but there it was- Washington had mentioned caps. Documents didn't cut your fingers off...
"That's a shame," she said slowly. "For her, anyway. What sort of pay were you giving her?"