Going Up

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The door opens on the dim and dank-smelling interior of a house that hasn’t been properly lived in for a very long time. "This is the nearest door to where the ship's beacon landed," says Ellen. "I figured there was no need to make anybody walk except me. If you see anything brown and fast moving that's about the size of a human baby, it's probably a radroach. It's about a quarter of a mile to the beacon from here."

Comments

[1nv1nc1ble]

Invincible steps through and pauses, waiting for his eyes to adjust. "Walking is fine," he says, trying to ignore the mental image of a cockroach that big. He looks around, taking in his surroundings, and looking as out of place in his bright yellow and blue costume. "Anything out here that's likely to try and take a bite out of me?" he asks, picking his way through the remains of the house towards the nearest door.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Not right now," Ellen says. She herself has her Chinese stealth armor on, and a heavy white reinforced overcoat over that. "I swept the area before I got to the house. There's a couple of giant radscorpions about half a mile southwest of here, and some mole rats establishing a colony due east, but that's about it for the moment."

When she mentions the mole rats she indicates something about the size of Dogmeat.

"Not that we don't get more dangerous things on a regular basis, but I try to make sure the scene is safe when I bring people through from the Bar. It's only fair."

[1nv1nc1ble]

Invincible nods. "I don't think anything's going to be able to hurt me, but it can't hurt to be cautious." He looks around the landscape, adding, "I think I'm the brightest thing out here. Although it's less desolate than I imagined." He motions to the stunted trees and patchy grass.

Still, given that this part of the country is pretty developed in his world, at least from what he's seen in his occasional flybys, the shattered buildings and destroyed roads are certainly evidence of the devastation that people in Ellen's world brought down upon themselves two centuries ago. "How far from the Capital are we?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I had another Milliways patron come through here a while ago," Ellen says. "Jack's been helping me spread a lot of desert-adapted seeds around. Six months back, the trees would've been just burnt stumps and the grass would've been yellow and brown, where there was any grass at all. I'm not above asking for off-world help if it can make the Wasteland viable again."

She rubs at the back of her neck a moment, thinking. Then she points in a generally southerly direction and says, "You can't make out the DC skyline from here, but it's in that direction. We're north of the ruins of Bethesda, Maryland, and well east from what used to be Germantown. Not sure if that helps at all, but I tend to measure distance in terms of how long it takes to walk from one point to another, so my measurements probably aren't the same as yours."

[1nv1nc1ble]

"I met Jack, out at the lake. Seemed like a nice guy." He looks around at the countryside. "This seems like a perfect project for someone with his job."

He peers in the direction that Ellen is pointing, but Invincible lacks the super-senses that other alien supermen possess, so he just nods. "I'm not really familiar with what it looks like in my world, except for the pictures of D.C. proper. Nothing's really sent me to Virginia yet."

"Anyway," he continues, "it's your party. Lead the way."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen nods and sets off at a trot. She's used to covering the Wasteland distances at a jog or better- walking, after all, only means the predators can catch up with you. And since she's not wearing her power armor, or carrying all her supplies on her back, she can make pretty good time.

Not like it's far to the crater, anyway. It's a long, almost comet-shaped scrape in the ground, with lots of loose rock and rubble. "This is where an alien scout ship crashed," she says as she picks her way over the stones. "The beacon's at the far end, about where the scout ship was before the mothership beamed me and it up. It must be pretty well anchored or buried, because someone would've taken it for scrap by now otherwise."

[1nv1nc1ble]

Mark follows with little difficulty, although the rough terrain is a little more than a city boy from California is used to. A couple of times, he simply hovers over the rocky terrain until it evens out. As they approach the site, he rises to about ten feet above it, to get a good look.

"I'm surprised it was recoverable," he says as he lands beside her after a minute or two. "There's not much here to soften the impact. Testament to its construction, I suppose."

He looks around. "Anyone live out this way, or is that just ruins?" He points off at what looks like a power station to the south.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"That's ruins," says Ellen. "The last time I passed close to there, it was full of feral ghouls. Did I tell you about those? They're what happens to people who absorb huge amounts of radiation and aren't lucky enough to die. People sometimes call the feral ones 'zombies', and they really aren't that far wrong."

She starts brushing away some of the surface dirt and rocks.

"The nearest town to here is Minefield, I think. That's south of here. Unless you want to count the Olney ruins, which I don't, since Olney was basically home to a major nest of deathclaws."

[1nv1nc1ble]

"Yeah, you mentioned the ghouls. Sounds like they got a raw deal," says Mark. "But what's a deathclaw? I'm guessing that it's something big and predatory. Some sort of mountain lion?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Nah. Lizards," says Ellen. "Bipedal. Horns and claws and tails. About ten or fifteen feet long, most of them. The breeding mothers are just plain huge- I've only ever seen one, and I had to have people from Milliways help get rid of her. I'm hoping another one doesn't show up in Olney any time soon. We've got enough trouble without having to wipe them all out. I'll show you a picture once we're on the ship- I brought a small briefing for Elliott, so you might as well have a look too."

There's a clink! of metal as she moves rocks around.

"Ah, here we are- this is the beacon. There's an emergency signal switch on the side, so we should be able to get Elliott's attention without a fuss. Ready?"

[1nv1nc1ble]

Mark digests the concept of a giant lizard for a few minutes. A small voice in his head remarks that it'd be interesting to see if he could stand up to one of those, but it's shouted down by the triumvurate of Common Sense, Sanity, and Survival Instinct. He nods to Ellen. "Yup. Let 'er rip."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Which means he's probably well ahead of most people in the Wasteland, given how few of them can even muster a duumvirate out of those three.

At any rate, Ellen nods and presses the emergency signal switch. It takes a few minutes, but just as Ellen is starting to get fidgety- that coat's not light, and it's August here- a strange wind begins to swirl around them, and the air is suddenly filled with golden light.

It tingles.

And then, just as suddenly as it came, the light is gone and both Ellen and Mark are standing on a round, glowing pad surrounded by a low railing. At the far side of the room is an instrument bank or something of that nature- hard to say, as they're looking at the back of it. Perhaps more important is the worried-looking blond man on the other side, who glances up and lets out an explosive sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God, it worked!" he says.

[1nv1nc1ble]

(His Survival Instinct is a puny little thing; after all, he is a superhero. But it does speak up from time to time.)

"Whoa," says Invincible. "That was quicker than I thought it would be." He looks himself over, making sure everything is where it should be. Then, he realizes what the man said. He looks at Ellen with an expression of concern, and asks, "He didn't test it first?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Given the look on Ellen's face, she's about to ask the same question.

The man swallows and quickly says, "I've used it to send people down, but I don't really have a whole lot of people I can get to go down and come back up. I beamed up a couple of rocks once... wait a minute. Who are you? Is that- Ellen, you mentioned a 'Brotherhood of Steel'. Is that their uniform? I mean, you're not wearing it..."

"No," says Ellen when she gets her jaw back. "No, it's not. This is a friend of mine, who goes by the name 'Invincible'. Invincible, this is Dr. Elliott Tercorien, formerly of the 108th Infantry Battalion, in 2077."

"Pleasure to meet you," says Tercorien, although he still sounds a little unsure. "Are you a wrestler?"

[1nv1nc1ble]

"Wow," says Invincible, laughing. "No one's asked me that before. I didn't even think about the luchadors...."

He grins and sticks out a hand. "To answer the question, Dr. Tercorien, no, I'm not a wrestler. I'm a superhero."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Tercorien nods and cautiously shakes the offered hand, as if he half-expects it to get crushed on contact. "Like in the comic books?" he says. "Manta Man, Spy Smasher, all that stuff? I thought those were fictional." He glances over at Ellen. "I know a lot's changed since I was frozen, though. Does the residual radiation from the nukes going off give people powers?"

[1nv1nc1ble]

(The narrative is trying to determine whether Manta Man was bitten by a radioactive manta ray, raised by manta rays, or took the symbol of the manta ray to frighten criminals while he avenged his murdered parents.)

"Actually, in my case it's a matter of genetics," explains Invincible. "My father came from the planet Viltrum, which is on the other side of the Universe according to him. Viltrumites are genetically compatible with humans, and he met my mother in California about twenty years ago. His people believe in helping other races, so he taught me about it when I got old enough."

"The costume and the name are just to keep people from kicking in the door at suppertime."

Invincible pauses, then adds, "I hope the whole 'half-alien' thing isn't going to cause problems. Ellen told me about the original crew of this ship; I can assure you that Viltrumites look nothing like the extraterrestrials she described."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"You know, I always wondered if the little green jerks hadn't seeded Earth with life millions of years ago and come around to see how it was developing," Elliott muses. "Maybe they got their genetic stock from the planet Viltrum. That'd explain the compatibility and all."

Ellen smiles faintly, but only says, "Is this really the place for this conversation?"

"Whoops. Sorry," says Elliott. "We'd... you'd better come with me back to the bridge. At least you'll be able to sit down. Can I offer you something to drink? Sally's been scavenging a lot of soda bottles out of the cargo hold. And... other bottles, but she's too young for those."

[1nv1nc1ble]

"Soda's okay with me," says Invincible, following Elliott out of the transporter room. He looks around at the ship as they walk. "I'm not much of a drinker."

"Sally's one of your fellow refugees, I take it?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Yep. She was six or seven when the aliens took her," says Elliott. The corridor they're passing through is blue-lit, and a little cramped. Scoring on the walls and the odd faded scorch mark mutely testify to some past battle. "Right before the War went nuclear, from the way she described things."

"She told me once she managed to run away from the aliens a couple of times before they caught her and froze her again," Ellen notes. "She's small enough to fit into a lot of parts of the ship we can't."

"Which is how she's getting into the cargo hold," Elliott says. "The doors stopped working on that a while ago, so she's been retrieving stuff from there. Beats the alternatives."

"Tired of tentacles?" Ellen guesses. "I know Somah hated those."

"Yeah, about her-" Elliott hesitates, then reaches out to tap a Y-shaped control glowing next to a circular door. The door splits into six triangular segments and pulls itself apart. "She beamed down to Earth a long while ago. Took a bunch of stuff with her and left in the night. I haven't heard from her since."

"That's okay, I never really liked her," says Ellen. To Invincible she says, "Somah's a woman from the Capital Wasteland who was in the same holding cell as me the second time I woke up here. Very cynical and unpleasant."

"Anyway," says Elliott, "welcome back to the bridge, Captain." He smiles a little. "Didn't think I'd remember?"

Ellen just shakes her head. "You've been here longer than I have," she says, ducking through the door; it was designed for a shorter race than humans. "If anyone deserves it, it's you."

"Me? I've just been holding the fort because there's nothing better to do- anyway, have a seat, I'll go get the soda." He indicates the control chairs at several bridge positions, which have been stacked with the cushions and fabrics of Earth filched from the cargo hold. Aliens, it seems, aren't big on ergonomics.

[1nv1nc1ble]

"Man... kidnapping a little girl...," says Invincible. "'Little green jerks' is right."

"I could probably open that door," he says to Ellen, while Elliott's collecting drinks. "though it'd likely never shut again, if the controls aren't working. Even if they are, it could get jammed." He sits down at one of the bridge positions, briefly studying the control panel. (To no effect; it's all Betelgeusian to him.)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"That might be worthwhile. The aliens stuffed a lot of human things down there," Ellen says. "Some of it could be useful. Especially if there's anyone else around."

Elliott returns a little while later and holds out two bottles of Nuka-Cola (in Dazzling Blue glass bottles) to the new arrivals. "As cold as I could get them," he says. "The refrigeration units tend towards either 'no use at all' or 'solid ice all the way through'."

Ellen nods, and leans forward in her chair. "Thank you," she says. "Looks like you've made yourself comfortable up here. Settled in for the long haul, huh?"

"Not... as such, no," says Elliott. "I mean- look. I know when I last saw you I said I was going to stay here."

"You said there was nothing and no one left on Earth that meant anything to you any more," Ellen says. "I remember."

Elliott nods. "Bingo," he says. "From what you and Somah told me, this ship was bound to be a million times nicer than Earth. And, you know, once you get past the part where absolutely everything is labeled in Alien and half the doors don't work because they operate on some kind of bizarre alien identification locking system, and all of the computers have readouts in languages that don't even vaguely resemble English, and the lights never switch off or dim, it's really not too bad."

Ellen lifts both eyebrows at that; she can't do just one.

"But, you know, spend enough time alone on a ship like this and you can't help but get thinking."

"What about Sally?" says Ellen. "And weren't you going to try to thaw out the people in the hold?"

"Try is the operative word," says Elliott, holding up one finger. "US Army training in cryoscience never prepared me for something like this. I've had a twenty-five percent success rate at thawing people out alive. I don't know if it's me, or the cryogenic process, or if the aliens screwed everybody up when they froze them- but if I try to thaw somebody out they're more likely to die than otherwise. And the ones I did thaw out alive haven't lasted very long." He glances up at Ellen. "Just like my old squadmates."

Ellen winces.

"Yeah. I stopped trying several months ago. At least I think it's several months ago. It's hard to keep track of time when the sun rises and sets in the observation window every ninety minutes."

[1nv1nc1ble]

Invincible takes the bottle with a nod and, without thinking, twists off the bottlecap with his hand. If it wasn't an actual twist-off cap, it is now. He sips at the soda, noting that it tastes almost but not quite like Pepsi, listening to the others.

"It sounds like you need to get out of here," opines Invincible quietly. "On a temporary basis, at the very least." He looks around at the surroundings, taking in the simple alien quality of the room. "Earth may be damaged by the war, but it's still Earth."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I'll tell you this much," says Elliott, looking up. "I might not have anything to go back to, but at least there'd be Earth food. Living on the stuff the aliens have in storage isn't doing my digestion any favors."

"We're only just now getting agriculture back on its feet," Ellen warns. "The DC area's a scrub desert-"

"I don't care. I've been eating tentacles out of a jar for most of a year now. It's starting to get to me."

[1nv1nc1ble]

"Well, as I was telling Ellen," says Invincible, "I might be able to get the cargo hold door open for you... although, you may not be able to close it again afterwards. That might give you something to eat other than the tentacles. It's a short-term solution to what sounds like a bigger problem, but if there's something in the way of Earth food in the hold," he holds up the bottle of soda for emphasis, "then it might make things a little more bearable while you figure out your next step."