Shelton

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen crept back into Fort Constantine, fairly holding her breath. She hadn't meant to head to Milliways, and didn't look forward to explaining the accident. Fortunately, Cross was still asleep, and Fawkes-

Huh. Fawkes wasn't there.

It took Ellen a little searching to locate the meta-human. The room in which they'd decided to shelter for the night was a former office high on the building's topmost floor, well away from the bomb storage facility and the heaps of dead robots. One of the walls had partly collapsed long ago, offering a view of the southern sky- but also offering an awkward-though-viable path up to the roof. When Ellen clambered over the rubble, she found Fawkes there, sitting crosslegged with his face to the east. Something about his posture stilled her words; she made her way over to sit down beside him instead of speaking.

"My apologies for stepping out without comment," Fawkes said after a while, his voice deep but nonetheless hushed. "I estimated I'd be able to hear your return, or any trouble that might strike."

"It's all right," Ellen answered. "You weren't hard to find. Why'd you come up here, anyway?"

"I wanted to watch the horiizon for a while," Fawkes said. "I've never seen the dawn."

"Really?" said Ellen, a little startled. She'd never seen a sunrise herself before leaving Vault 101, but Fawkes... "Not even when you were still human?"

Fawkes shook his great green head. "If I did, then, I have no memory of it," he said. "I remember nothing of my time before- this." The massive fingers of one slab-like hand flexed briefly under the light from Ellen's helmet. "All of the Vault seemed familiar to me when you set me free, more than mere computer maps would account for, but I don't recall anything more than that."

Ellen considered that for a while. "So... you don't even remember your real name?" she said tentatively.

There was a quiet, rumbling chuckle at that. "Fawkes is my real name," he said. "I chose it. That doesn't make it any less 'real' than any other. At least it means something to me."

Ellen flushed in embarrassment, silently grateful for the full-face helmet she wore. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean..."

"You needn't apologize, friend," said Fawkes. "I took no offense."

"Oh, good."

"I can say this much, however," Fawkes went on. "There was a time when I wondered about my old identity myself. It was when I was first learning to search through the records my chamber's terminal could access. I found a record of individuals who had been isolated in that room before. The last one of note was a woman; her name was Lewella Yonkie."

Ellen mouthed the name silently behind her helmet, not quite knowing what to say.

"And when you and I parted ways, I found several things within the vault itself," Fawkes went on. "Among them were a set of holotapes- the diary recording of a man, a security officer. He spoke of discovering the awful truth behind the deaths of many Vault residents, and of being hunted down at the last. There was... something familiar... about his voice. His name was Shelton Delacroix."

"Shelton- do you think-"

The meta-human shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "Perhaps that was my name, once. Perhaps I only knew his voice from some experience before I became as I am now. Perhaps I was that woman whose name I found in the records. I doubt very much whether it matters. So far as I am concerned, it's as I told you: I was born in the FEV chambers."

Ellen nodded slowly. "I think I understand," she said, although she wasn't quite clear on it all yet. Maybe someday. "Thank you for telling me."

"You're quite welcome. Shall we watch the sun rise together now?"