Now I'm Learning to Love the Wasteland

Wilde

Mei and I set out for the coordinates given to me by Three Dog immediately. That's where we were to meet up with her contact. We made excellent time. Her pace matched the quickness of her wit--she almost had me out of breath with laughter on more than one occasion.

"It's bizzaro traveling strictly on foot." She declared halfway through our trek, "I hate it."

"It certainly hasn't seemed to slow you down." I smiled.

"I would love to see anything try."

For someone who identified as a liar, a thief, and an expert in blowing things to hell, she was hardly what I expected. Mei was warm and pleasant with conversation as we walked. Poor Dogmeat, on the other hand, was lagging behind with restless digging. I whistled to her when she got too far. I noticed her tail drooped as she caught up, the whites of her eyes were showing. Stress.

"You miss Char, girl?"

My faithful pup's ears twitched. A soft whine. My heart ached--for her and with her.

Our destination was a small ridge directly south of Paradise Falls. It was a relief to see such a sight in the quiet dawn. We walked along that ridge until we found a rickety looking old gate to a dark sliver of an entrance hidden in the rocks. My bitten up fingers shook. The key from our friend Three Dog fit perfectly. Mei followed me as I slipped inside.

The hideaway was no larger than a broom closet, but it held copious amounts of ammo and supplies. I grabbed as much as I could carry and find useful.

"Mini nukes. Perfect. Are those....? Those are fireworks...!" Mei's brown eyes sparked. After gathering everything valuable, we zipped up our packs and wormed our way out of the crevice. Dogmeat (waiting patiently outside) had begun barking before my eyes would adjust to the bright morning light.

A figure in weathered black and red power armor with his hands on a gatling laser was waiting outside. I made a move for my rifle.

"Relax, Blondie." Mei called behind me and coaxed me to lower my gun with a wavery hand, "It's the Outcast."

The figure across from us removed its helmet. A serious and pale looking man with cropped auburn hair and dark eyes blinked and nodded me.

"Op, sorry! Didn't mean to startle you. Sally Hatchet! Long time no see."

"You're looking well, Rococo."

"I am? Oh.... I am. Thanks. Come on, the jeep's this way."

The Outcast began to trudge up the hill.

I followed him, but couldn't keep my curiosity hidden for long, "I'm sorry, "Jeep"?"

Mei smiled, "I hate traveling on foot. Rocko, this is Blondie. Blondie, Rocko."

"It's Rococo Rockwell." He turned his head to correct her gently, "Sally does love her nicknames."

"They're necessary, when you're with the Railroad." Mei winked. I caught on to her playful suggestion and smiled.

"That's an interesting name, Rococo." I spoke conversationally.

The Outcast did not seem interested in talking, "My Dad got it from an encyclopedia. Let's make this quick. I'm not supposed to be helping civilians."

I looked to Mei and she nodded to follow. If her visibly paranoid soul trusted him, then it was good enough for me.

"Hey, Rocko."

"Yes, Sally?"

"What gun goes 'chk-chk'?" Mei pantomimed. Rockwell looked back at her quizzically. There was something threatening in the way she set her hands on her hips. It made the Outcast stumble in his words,

"What? Oh...er.. a shotgun?"

Mei threw her head back and cackled, "I'm driving."

"Sally, you know I can't allow civilians--"

"You called it!" My newest companion shouted beyond him, running straight towards the ugly moss-colored vehicle parked on the other side of the ridge, "You can't hardly drive, anyways."

Charlie

"I want you to visualize the rage you felt when you attacked Thorne. Picture it, and hang on to it. ...When the light flashes, I want you to let go."

Except I couldn't. My rage only became more vivid. It only got worse.

Of the countless days in the vault, I remembered the day the bombs fell the most vividly. It sounded like some eldritch creature from down below the sea--a ruthless god waking to devour the crusted layers above. I kept getting the image of something slimey, slithering with a low rumble against the walls that enclosed us. A bloated, scaled belly right against the compacted steel. Groaning, suffering, dragging the whole world down into an unending punishment.

Our Vault, and I suspected the others, too, were no exception.

Philly had been seated next to me in the entertainment room as we were forcefed some Vault-Tec propaganda. My companion was shrinking and grabbing his ears. My brother Frank was on the other side of me, eyes down to the ground. I sat stark still between the two. Mouth a sealed, tired line. Other men in the room were sobbing--some even crumpling to the floor while the head researcher made the announcement: On October 23rd, 2077, the Great War had started and ended.

It was my birthday. Well, Frank’s too. My twin seemed to read my mind, snarling, “Blow out the candles. Some day this is, huh?”

"We must remain strong, gentleman. Our work continues." Dr. Khaulman was the first and only among the Vault's residents to speak above a whisper. I watched him with narrowed eyes from my seat while he murmured to the other labcoats surrounding him.

No one moved, his "hopeful" tone fell on deaf ears. The labcoats still treated this operation like it was legitimately out to help us--a 'psych' ward of sorts, but we all knew the real reason we were trapped down here in the vault with no name. We were the soldiers who’d fucked up so royally bad, they felt the need to study it. Glorified labrats.

Between the strict regimes and schedules designed to keep us " in top form" and the mysterious authority figures, I didn't find the vault suits much of a change from my old military uniform. The vault itself? All wrong. Nothing natural, not even the air. The schedules, the identical bunks, the rows of propaganda that lined each and every endless corridor all made it far too easy to become empty, to forget myself.

And that's just what the researchers wanted, looking back. A clean slate. No strings.

"Kinda curious.... What exactly are you hoping to accomplish here?" Was one of the few, early questions I remember asking Dr. Khaulman before things really started going to shit.

"The answer to that, dear boy, lies in my question for you: What spurred you to murder Sergeant Thorne in broad daylight?"

I remember squirming in the too-small chair seated before his large, metal desk. I scrutinized his stupid desk decor in silence. He kept talking without me giving him an answer. Labcoats always did:

"...You see, the driving force that makes a man lose his self preservation to carry out violent impulse... is something my team is very much inclined to find. Can you imagine the power one could have with that answer? If you could give the violent flares of your brain discipline and direction? What it could do for artificial intelligence... or for you?"

I scoffed. Dr. Khaulman ignored my attitude as though I didn’t exist. I suppose I never really did, to him. All he wanted was what data he could glean from me and the others.

"Harmful behaviours, erased. Things like addiction, mood swings... Aggression." He stressed the last word, "All these things could be controlled!"

He smiled. It was deliberate and errie. It took over his whole damn face, creating pocketed shadows in the hollows under his eyes and cheeks. In the beginning, Frank had been hopeful that the vault might turn out alright. “We’ll be enhanced soldiers” a labcoat told him, “highly trained bodyguards. Rubbing elbows and protecting government hot shots after the apocalypse’. But I knew by one glance at Khaulman’s sleazy smile right then: There was no hope for any of us left.

Where my heart had me giving in and giving up, Philly's hardened. After each group session he'd linger in the halls, walking alongside me to our quarters.

"What are they doing to you? How are you feeling?"

"Fine, they're just... talking."

I blinked up at the white lights, scowling.

"They've got me hooked up to wires, man. Electroshock. Everytime it hits..."

I studied his pallid, nervous face. His eyes were purple-hued and sagging with exhaustion. I felt an alien kind of concern. There was a new energy in the way his eyes zipped and zagged to any shadowed corner in the vicinity. I wanted to protect him. Being near him made me feel a little closer to my old self--even as this place did everything it could to kill what little "self" was left.

Phillip waited until the aides walking in front of us disappeared into a nearby elevator. He grabbed my arm, "We've got to do something. Come on. I've seen where they keep their equipment."

I don't know where Philly'd gotten the keycard and I didn't care to. I knew that I wanted to help him.

We took another lift down, down. How many levels did this literal hellhole have?

"Just follow my lead, Charlie." Phillip breathed shakily. Of course. Ever since the incident in Nevada, all I'd known how to do was follow whatever shit current took me. Doctor Khaulman had already begun encouraging that weakness.

Everything about the restricted lower level packed with strange machinery and terminals should've evoked reaction--shock, anger, fear--but I found I could feel very little. As if all the emotion left in me was being twisted out like a rag.

Phillip's voice was shaking as he went through terminals and searched alien looking parts, "...This is what they've been researching.. .Every single one of these machines... I will find a way to destroy them."

I mostly kept watch. I found it near impossible to do much else, anyhow. Every session with Dr. Khaulman was leaving me exhausted and confused. Towards doomsday, near catatonic.

I didn't know how to tell my lover that I was forgetting time. Hours, days. There were moments when my own name escaped me.

"Charlie? Charlie are you listening to me?"

Phillip’s anxious voice from above my bunk. Frank’s down below.

"He's fucking braindead. Don’t you see? Every single day he comes back more braindead."

Frank slapped at my face. I wanted to react. Spit on him. Couldn’t.

I could hear Phillip's voice, horrified and weak, "We have to do something, Frank."

"I'm going to." Frank snapped back shortly, “I’ll find a way. Hey. Hey Charlie. Let’s say we do the crossword, huh? We always do the crossword. Charlie? ….Jesus. What are they doing to him?”

"What's that, Doc?"

"A mezz-me-tron. We're going use it to help…

The strange high pitched whining with the sudden flash of bright, searing light. I tried to recall my mother’s face, tried to forget Dr. Khaulman’s. I found I couldn’t do either.

….soldiers like you."

Despite my inability to vocalize much, I would follow Phillip whenever he asked. Late at night, we’d find a way to avoid staff. We became each other’s refuge. Just my being there with him seemed to give him the will to carry out his goals--sabotaging whatever mezzers he could reach and whichever terminals he could access.

He got good, too. He managed to find a way to make them faulty with little visible tampering. But winning doesn’t last forever. You can imagine how quickly consequences came when the labcoats discovered what we were doing. I was put in solitary confinement for weeks. They moved Phillip to another level. I felt a creeping worry under my skin at that news, brought to me by Khaulman’s sleazy smile, no less.

Towards the end of my own grueling punishment, I felt desperate and mad. I could do nothing but pace, and peruse a single copy of Grognak the Barbarian. I always found myself lost in the crosswords. Every sound from the outside in solitary confinement--footsteps, pipes echoing, keys rattling--they all had me on edge. I remembered feeling sad when I drove round my old neighborhood and saw dogs chained out in the yard all day--now I felt I knew exactly why.

We were all treated more like prisoners after Phillip’s and mine’s “misconduct”. Our own safety, they said. To top everything off, my brother... they'd done something to him.

He was a paranoid, scatter-driven mess. They were hopping him up on chems. He kept on chattering at mealtime about his doctor giving him whatever he wanted, how the therapy was “really working”. Said they’d stuck an implant in him to make him stronger, more “levelheaded”. It sure wasn’t working in the way I’d call effective. When we were in our cell together he’d rant and rave with mood swings. One minute I was a traitorous scumbag he refused to speak to, the next moment he needed me, pleading to help him escape; “this place is killing us” he’d pace. I stayed glued to my cot during any free time, feeling dizzy and ill from the mezzers most of the time. Every moment of reality now seemed like a bad carousel ride. Words couldn’t explain. Useless, heavy weights in my stomach. Losing my name. Chad? Chip? Everytime I tried to remember, I only saw light. That horrible, empty little light accompanied by Dr. Khaulman’s crooning voice.

Frank’s rage at my mental “absence” grew, and his temper soon became much larger than him. He punched his fists to a pulp one morning (evening?) when I couldn’t recall the exact date to him. Thing was, he didn’t know either.

Frank was hauled off to solitary confinement in fits of laughter. I sat upright and unblinking while he was gone, staring at the sad stain he’d made on the wall. When he was ushered into our cell once more, Frank was more disheveled, but quiet and docile. He mostly sat in his bunk. Hands tented gently. Smiling wickedly. Somehow his once bright blue eyes were dimmed.

I worried for Philly even more as each day ran into another. Where was he? What had the egghead fucks done to him? Had they taken his soul, too?

Constant screaming beneath my skin. I can feel it on my brother, even across the room. How long were the three of us suffering down there? On the night my brother decides he’s had enough, Khaulman does his mezzer ritual, the last one I can remember. I’m given a contract to sign. All the labcoats are in his spacious office, clapping.

Another assault of light.

“We consider you the first success in our program. Congratulations.”

I grunted, wiping at my eyes from the camera flash.

“Aren’t you the least bit curious who your contract holder will be?”

“No.” I didn’t care. I found it hard to care about anything, except the contract itself. The emptiness now came with a strong drive to honor that little piece of paper’s terms. “Who” didn’t really matter.

The aides didn’t announce lights out anymore. We knew the routine. When the fluorescent bulbs on our floor went out with a clunking shudder that night, I wasn’t surprised.

When my brother rose from his bunk and stood in the middle of our quarters--that did surprise me. It looked like some other force had dragged him up. His posture was all wrong. I remember thinking the way he turned his head towards me in the dark would haunt my dreams, if I ever dreamed again.

“Heard you got your assignment today.” His voice was oddly friendly from his dark corner of the room. It possessed an underlying malice.

“Who told you that?” I asked without making a move to get up. I can’t remember the last time I’d been compelled to respond to my brother, but I guess a whole lot of things were slated to change that night.

“Doctor Khaulman announced it to us.”

“Hm.”

“Says you’re a major achievement.”

“Mm.”

“That’s it? You don’t feel… accomplished?”

“Why should I? I don’t even feel human anymore.”

Frank sighed. He rubbed his face in his shaky, sweating palms. “Neither do I, brother.”

He laughed. It was unusual. I saw him reach under his mattress. I froze when I saw the distinct shape of a pistol in his hands.

“You know, I read somewhere... I think it was Life or Time or some shit... that sometimes, in the womb, one twin'll just... soak up the other. Like a goddamn parasite.”

The air in the room dropped forty degrees. I remained stony and frozen as I stared at him. Frankie pointed the barrel lazily at my chest. He was still shaking. “I used to think that was terrible. So sad, you know? But now I feel like it’s just... a law of nature.”

I don’t know how to describe someone who is both manic and in tears, but that was my brother. Bizzare, frightening, and hysterical.

“We’re all miserable. Have you looked around? You’re a shell. Your boyfriend Barrowman’s probably dead, every single other patient on record is either dead, insane, or addicted to psycho... and I guess now that includes me!”

My unhinged brother laughed again. Shifted gears to deadly serious. His eyes were the size of saucers, whirling mad. His voice peaked in volume:

“There’s nothing but evil down here… and I found out about more outside… So I’m doing the hard thing. What you and Philly never had the balls to do. Laws of nature. I’m destroying this place and making sure nobody gets out alive.”

I wanted to tell my twin to put the gun down, I wanted to tell him to sit, to talk, to try and remember where we came from. It was not a plea for my life so much as it was a plea for his dignity. I'd lost my voice again. Same as it ever was, I couldn’t speak.

Frank raised his gun, “Starting with the biggest abomination here…”

Even with a clear moment to react, to knock the weapon from his trembling hand, I could not.

“...You.”

My brother pulled the trigger. A red, fiery pain unlike any other bloomed in my shoulder. I’d never be truly rid of it.

Wilde

Dogmeat had half of her whole body hanging out of the backseat. “Girl, please be careful!” I halfway scolded her. She seemed to be enjoying the wind whipping around the jeep. I, on the other hand, was curled up in the opposite corner of our shared seat. My arms crossed and my face buried in Charon’s jacket. I was trying very, very hard not to puke. My efforts had proven successful. So far.

“Are you alright back there, Blondie? You get carsick?” Despite the concern in her voice, Mei sped up.

“I’ve never ridden in a vehicle before!” I poked my head from my hiding spot. Rococo joked that I looked like a sad turtle.

Mei laughed, “We’re not much farther now! Then the real fun starts.” She gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled fury. I wasn’t sure what “fun” was to her. I guessed it involved fire. The vehicle jerked violently as we rolled over something. I groaned.

“I think we hit a body.” Mei said spiritedly as she twisted in the driver’s seat, “Did we hit a body?”

She screeched to a stop. Dogmeat was sniffing the air intently. I rose in my seat. The scene outside was smoky, a plume of it on the horizon was ominously black.

“Ro, go out there and check.”

“What?! I don’t take orders from civilians.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be recon? Blondie and I gotta lay low. Go out there and check.”

Rococo hesitantly opened the passenger door, “If you leave me again…”

She hissed, “Go!”

The Outcast obeyed, but not without looking over his shoulder every two seconds. I watched with Dogmeat from the window, ducking only when Mei hissed an order to “stay down”. I saw a wrecked heap of black metal, surrounded by equipment advanced beyond anything I’d seen.

“Lots of bodies.” Rococo called back, “Looks like we got a wrecked vertibird. Hell of a firefight.”

“What sort of bodies?” Mei yelled. She was donning her huge aviators, covering her face with her scarf.

“Slavers and…” Ro’s voice trailed off. I followed Mei’s thought to exit the vehicle. We caught up with Rococo just as his voice lowered to a tepid whisper, “Oh no.”

The bodies scattered around the crash were all covered in curious power armor and strange uniforms. Each weapon was shockingly high grade--plasma and lasers. I helped myself to as much ammo as I could stow. It didn’t ease the concern in the air.

“Enclave.” Mei Wong announced sternly.

“Enclave?” I’d heard of them, but up until now they seemed like a rumor.

“They’re the remnants of the pre-war government,” Rococo explained, “The Brotherhood and the NCR have been trying to wipe them out for years. I’d never dream of seeing them this far east.”

“Well, it looks like some dreams really do come true. Cowboy’s gonna be pissed...” Mei said, “Ro, you’d better go tell your guys.”

The power armored figure next to us sighed, “Yeah. God knows Lyons and his little charity squad isn’t going to do anything about this.”

I didn’t fully comprehend the tensions between The Brotherhood and its “Outcasts” who’d defected from the organization. Apparently Rococo’s kind had enough of fighting D.C.’s mutant presence, and wished to focus its efforts on studying and hoarding of pre-war weapons, the group's “true goal”. This was done, Rococo explained on the drive, to ultimately minimize risk of another Great War. “Man should never have had all that reliance on dangerous technology. The real Brotherhood ensures it won’t fall into the wrong hands again.”

I saw his point, but the Mutant threat seemed more immediate to the Capital, so I sided with Lyons’ position more. And at least Lyons was doing something. Before meeting Mei, I’d never even seen an outcast. Ro would argue these points and many more, but now we were all silent in our dread as we stared down a new threat.

“Hey! Let’s keep moving.” Mei announced finally after we picked the wreck clean, “It’s gonna take something seismic to stop these guys and Eulogy’s probably gonna send a scouting team out soon. I don’t wanna hang around to meet either.”

We parked and parted ways nearby at an ancient billboard advertising the exit to “Paradise Falls”. Dogmeat and I followed Mei off the highway and into a gutted suburb.

“The Fear lives here. Not a peep.” She didn’t have to warn us twice. The darkening of her mood accompanied the creeping dark of the cul-de-sac I found myself in. The ice in the air made my head a mess of nerves. After stopping to listen carefully in the silence, my accomplice waved Dogmeat and I over to a house with a red door.

“Leave Dogmeat and the explosives outside. Follow my lead.”

We stepped carefully through the gnarled remnants of a picket-fenced garden. The smell of must was dank when we entered. Three dirty looking men were set up around a dim campfire in what might’ve been a living room. They looked just as surprised, but twice as dangerous. I was holding in my breath, panicking inwardly as Mei raised her hands beside me.

“Which one of you wants to deliver Sally Hatchet to Eulogy Jones?”

Charlie

“...so far no signs of any significant nerve damage, though there’s been a large amount of blood loss. Regardless I expect he’ll make a full recovery.”

“Good. As soon as he’s stable, I want him in solitary and on lockdown until this.... situation is resolved.”

“Are you sure? Seems a little extreme, we should probably run--”

“Fool! I am the lead of this project, not you. Give me that stimpak. Gah! Where did the other McCarron go.”

“Security can’t find him, sir. The outside’s too heavily irradiated to continue a search--Sir that’s my keycard. Sir?!”

Agitated voices. A struggle. Screams.

I woke up in an old nightmare; the lab coats had put me in solitary after all. The days in that hole just melded and held. I didn’t feel hungry. I didn’t sleep. My body ceased to function normally. I felt crushed by an invisible weight within my chest. There was only me. There was only the dark.
I held onto the crossword. I couldn't see it, but I could recite all the clues. It became the one thread I had tied to sanity. I whispered the numbers till I could no longer speak. When I could no longer find the will to speak, I spelled out the answers in my head.

(one ac ro s s... )

"...Charlie.... Charlie..."

The sound of a human voice, as weak and muffled as it was. My eyes snapped open. Had I been sleeping? Was I finally dead?

By now, my ears were trained to any noise in this hole. When I heard footsteps nearing the door to my cell, my body lurched up off the floor like some kind of switch. The lights in the long tunnel that opened up before me were low. I still made the move to shield myself.

The figure in the doorway was sheathed in shadow. It gasped,

"Charlie!" Arms fling around my torso. I recognized the figure now.

"... Phil." It's all I can manage and it is weak and watery, even with all the emotions tugging and bursting inside. My love was inspecting the old, dirty bandage that covered my shoulder--pulling it back. I felt a wave of shaking panic as I realized: my wound hasn't healed. It no longer bleeds, but it doesn't look right. The skin. What was happening to my skin?

"We need to get you out of here." Phillip drew me close. Even though his presence was warming, I could not stop my shakes. The hallway blurred and swiveled into vision. Phillip steadied me by gripping tighter around my arm. I turned to look at him.

His face was marred and bleeding. His eyes were no longer green, but the grays of a corpse. My face blares the question: what happened?

"After Frank ran off..." What's left of his jaw was set and hardened, his expression shifted to take in the hall around us. The metal walls were smeared with blood. The bodies of some aides are slumped along the walkway. I clutched at Philly's waist with the shock, (especially the smell) trying to drag myself up. His eyes twitched at me from above, before he also swayed, collapsed.

He struggled with words as he pulls me up with him, "Come on, Charlie... this place is flooded with rads. Frank opened the door and they couldn't shut it. We... have to get up, we have to go..."

I realize I am in tears as he takes my hand. He led me up. His fingers covered in the same ugliness as my chest. I try hard not to look at the bodies around us, the shock of it all after so long in isolation is too much to bear. I focused on the back of Phillip's head. He is no longer shaking, but steadied in his steps. Once in a while he twitched and vocalized, violently.

"What's--"

"Shsh, in here." He ushered me into the nearest elevator.

He handed me a pistol with shaking hands. "It's real bad out there. Worse than anything you could imagine in here. Hang on to it."

It feels so strange, having been without any personal posessions for so long. But I heed him.

He saw the anxiety behind my dead eyes, "Don't worry, I'll grab one off an aide before we..."

The elevator dings open. A feral claws an arm through the slim opening between the two metal doors. I watched, stunned, as Phillip grabbed the offending appendage and twisted, slamming the 'close button' until the unfortunate bastard let out a screech and retreated.

He was never violent. But I didn't know what they'd done to him, did I?

Phil was ripping at his hair in tufts by the time we could spot the Vault's entrance. My hand was still gripping for life to the bones of his undead fingers. I found it alarming how he got limper and limper as we headed down the grisly hall.

I cried out in protest when I felt Phillip's hand slip away from my pinching grasp. In too quick a moment, he'd ducked into the 'entertainment' room. He closed the door.

In my panicked move to try (and fail) and opening the door, I barely had time to process Phillip's hurried voice through the speaker outside. I managed to cling to every word somehow.

"I need you to listen to me, Charlie. I know it's..." He labors with the effort of speaking. I barely register how he's changed in all my own horror. Hell, I could barely recognize my own first name.

Phillip continued, "Oh god, everything burns.... I... I slipped my keycard into your back pocket. You need to slide that once you close the vault door, and change the password."

He twitched in fits. Screaming. Unhuman screaming. "Philly? Phil!" I slammed my fist on the window but I can see that my voice is faraway, silent to him.

"It ...It's too late for me. You have to get out. Forget about me, about all of this. Go see the mammoth. Go back home, to Boston, like you always wanted. Just... we can't let Khaulman have any of this. ...Not even a goddamn paperclip..."

Another violent jerk. A stronger and more harrowing cry. I went from frozen in place to a furious blur of flesh, fists pounding desperately on the glass.

A hand of mine absently reached for the bandages on my injured shoulder. I tore at the silver chain around my neck. My breathing got panicked and wild at the sight of my injury again... so raw. Why was the skin peeling off? I found myself yelling for Frank. My hair, my hair is falling into my palms in clumps. I cry one last time for Philly. The only piece of my hopes left is gone. I leave it all there, shambling deliriously towards that ugly, giant gear. The walls are still lined with bodies; evidence of aides trying to quell dangerous, irradiated patients. The monsters left standing do nothing but stare. Why? I knew, but I didn't want to believe.

I remember a small cave that shows light at the end of the tunnel. I stared into the light at the end. Red.

I did as Philly instructed once I passed through the threshold of my old prison. Looking back, it was probably the last time I would "obey" an order other than Azrukhal's for over a century. I punched in a password. Three numbers.

(first letter)

This is a bad dream, I thought. When the door opens, I'll be sleeping in my cot and feeling like myself. Everything'll be alright again.

I didn't bother watching the Vault door ceremoniously turn and close. I had to move forward and forget, like Phillip told me to.

I took a deep breath, shaking after reaching the end of a snaking, rocky passage. I squeezed through a crack in the collapsed tunnel. I trembled as I felt my marred hands reach air, Outside air.

Filthy, sweltering, sick.

You can imagine an old painting of hell, and it still wouldn't be enough to describe the horror. I coughed and broke. Wept loudly when I see the scene before me. The world had turned to a lonely ball of red and ash, and most of it was still burning. The air was now sordid in what was left of my nose. All the noise, the screams, the death settling into every pore...

Panicked breaths again. My hands. I still have the pistol but what is happening to my hands? Flesh just drips right off. Am I going... Am I going to be... I found myself falling back, slumping into the concrete debris behind me.

A numbness pulls at my exhausted body. The word "i" is too big, one thinks. Charlieeeee Who was he, anyways?

Looking up at the sky, the sun was nowhere to be found. Dark smoke blotted out the sky. Blinking tears away, I collapse and lie down in a sprawl upon the dead earth.

Some kind of slumber came. I was awoken by sharp, nagging kicks to the gut.

Dr. Khaulman's voice gurgled and ground, "C'mon! Stupid useless sack of--"

Once my eyes blinked open he changed gears and sputtered frantically, "Fool! Help me move this rubble."

I began without question. I took only a moment to pause from my work when the Doctor turned and spat over his shoulder, "You too."

My brother is behind him. Frank. A numbing chill washes over me like a creeping wave. Khaulman orders me sternly to get back to work. He threatens what is left of my brother,

"Do you want another bullet in your leg? Get over here and help." His ugly, patronizing tone grates me even then, though I can't think to stop working. Frank shambles over and busies himself nearby. I can only look upon him with that strange numbness. This man was not my brother. He was something shriveled and haunted and wrong. He was visibly weak and malnourished. His cheeks hollowing and his eyes sunken, one of them welling black with blood. The ash staining the creases in his face made him look years older, although we were the same age.

"Wow, Charlie." Were his first spitting words to me upon reuniting, "You look like shit."

"Shut up and work." Dr. Khaulman was frothing at the mouth. He was bent and shaking with rage, clawing at concrete he could manage to roll away from the entrance with bloodied fingers.
I shoved at a crack in the barrier that kept us outside. The three of us leapt back. A dusty cascade of more debris came down. Instead of making the door more accessible, the wall of rubble became impossible to pass.

The scream that bellowed from Dr. Khaulman did not sound human. He tore at his shallow features. My brother and I watched in a frozen and ill fascination as he dug out chunks of flesh with clawed, acrid fingers.

"Kill him." Frank hissed panic at my side, "Waste him like you did Thorne."

Before I could even question the suggestion, Frank grabbed for the pistol in my waistband. I reacted. It was the last thing I had of Philly's. We struggled, forgetting all about the weapon once my brother and I hit the ground. Our hands lashed out and we fought like children.

"You commie shit!" Frank ripped at was was left of my hair while I slammed my knee into his back. We rolled, hitting more rubble and cascading through more dust. When we separated, coughing dizzily, Dr. Khaulman had joined us.

He stood in between our tired, enraged bodies like a sickly referee. I saw Philly's gun in his hand and felt panic.... confusion as the Doctor calmly approached me with the weapon. I felt the gun slip into my own grip and I stood, wiping at blood in my mouth.

Frankie was still stooped over in a heap, coughing out blood. He looked at me with glazed, orange eyes.

Hell broiled around us. Doctor Khaulman's voice rose above every dying scream, every feral cry:

"This man has threatened my life. Shoot."

"Charlie, no."

I could feel myself weeping, despite my drive to obey. Mean tears stung what was left of my raw skin. My brother begged for his life then, weakly,

"Charlie, don't do it. Don't listen to him? Please."

The name had lost meaning. My arm raised and aimed of its own accord. My torn lips shivered. My eyes were so tight, tears blocked any hope of clarity. The toxic air stung a nose that dangled. Rotting flesh and open sores on my hands. And I remember.... I didn't even care. All I can think about in that moment... is light.

"Shoot!" The doctor shouts again, anger in his voice.

"...I'm sorry, Charlie. So sorry." Those were Frank's final words.

I couldn't say anything, even if I wanted to. A single shot ripped through the air. The bullet found my brother's skull. As he collapsed, I felt myself and Philly's gun hit the ground, too.

"..like a goddamn parasite..."

Charon

"This pistol.... Listen, are you listening? This pistol belongs to Penny. I need you to bring it back to her."

I could feel myself batting Rory away like a drunk. His shaking hands still forced the scoped pistol into my hand.

"Hide it. Hide it and bring it back to Penny. If anyone can get these kids out..."

I was still too delirous to grasp the damned thing. He hesitated, sighed, and settled on awkwardly hiding the weapon in my right boot. Memories were still attacking me in short bursts--Phillip's awful scream in the end, Dr. Khaulman telling me I was to go by Charon, and he Ahzrukhal. If anyone asked me a question, I was to stay deathly silent. The burning... oh, how my skin burned for years...
And my heart.... broken.

"Now, come on. One way or another, I'm going to find a way to get this door open." Rory and Ahzrukhal's voice overlapped in what was left of my ears.

I watched Rory rise and use all the force left in his tiny body to bang on the opening to The Box. I curled up tighter. We all become what's on the other side of the glass, eventually. Something Frank said, during one of his fits. A vision of Phillip haunted my head. I rocked on my heels.
Rory groaned exhaustedly. I half-watched as he gathered all his remaining strength and pushed the door open. Well, he made an attempt, anyways.

"You gonna help me with this?" He pauses, no breath left. I want to help. But I feel as though my brain has completely been replaced with dust and concrete. All I can hear is Phillip, slamming himself against glass...

PLEASE STAND BY

The door to the box slides open just as Rory made his final push. White light seared my eyes again.

Wilde

Mei did not waste a single second. Her playful smile twisted into something manic and hungry as her hand found her hip. With a smooth and decided motion, she sent her hatchet on a course across the ancient living room. Her weapon sailed and expertly landed square into one of the slaver's faces.

There was no time to react. The remaining slaver aimed his pistol. Mei dove down behind a tattered sofa as she shouted, "Blondie, shoot!"

I aimed before he could even manage to hit a cushion. Three zaps to the chest. They ate through his flesh like cigarette burns to paper. I watched him fall calmly.

Mei grunted as she hopped over to where her own kill lay. She looted his corpse, tossing some plasma rounds my way. I half-followed her, taking care to peek around the old house. The drooping, faded florals rotting away on the wallpaper and the declaritave creaks of the floorboards were fascinating.

"Do you want to be afraid?" Mei's voice was shifting with the shadows in the corners, it seemed.

"...No?" I turned about, confused.

"Then don't get distracted."

She barely made any sense. I still heeded her. I watched her stand straight from crouching over one of the Raider's faces. Her jaw clenched as she kicked a communication device in my direction.

"If I know Forty--and I know everyone--he's passed out drunk or passed out from not being drunk enough." Mei said, "You've got a shot at communicating with your man, if you want to."
My heart and my hands both leapt at the opportunity. Fingers shook as I inspected the dials. Mei dug a clawlike grip into my shoulder before drawing up that blood-stained scarf over her lips, "Make it quick. And cryptic. Or else."

The intensity of her gaze near the fire demanded hasty inspiration. The low battery on the walkie talkie blinked in warning. I rasped the first thing that came to mind in a voice that sounded unlike my own:

"Dante and Virgil in Hell."

Charon

I realized that it wasn't even mid-afternoon when they dragged me out onto the dirt. Eulogy's patience was as thin as my sanity. Should that've made me nervous? Did I even care to be alive at this point? So much of myself seemed.... gone. I could only drool at the sight of Rory getting shoved back into that horrible metal prison. They must've thought me too pathetic to beat that day; leading me into the pen once more as though I was a docile lamb. Eulogy stooped to my level to ask about my old Vault once again and more visions flashed: Phillip pulling me into an embrace; Frank ripping at his bedclothes in fits while I lied motionless on my bunk. Ahzrukhal. Khaulman. Screaming into my face about the password, how important it was.

But I wouldn't tell a soul. Not even a goddamn paperclip.

I remained stony-faced then, and I would remain so now. Eulogy's pestering could hardly bother me, but I indulged him with a response after realizing some quiet might do me good.

"If Ahzrukhal couldn't get a password out of me for decades, what makes you think you will in an afternoon?"

I watched an indignant rage shudder across his usually cool face. He squinted after considering his response,

"Then what use are you? You have until tomorrow afternoon to jog that memory, Red." He gestured with a red sleeve towards the Brahmin corpse being stripped near the camp's fire, "Then, I'll roast you like the beast you are."

I'd go down fighting first. We both knew that. I didn't even glance in his direction as I listened to him slowly rise and saunter off.

I was too tired to even think of running at this point, but there was one last thing kicking at me like a mule. I moved towards Penny, hiding her head near our shared bit of fence. I moved carefully so that I could pass off Rory's request.

Forty snored nearby. As soon as the rest of the moment was clear, I reached into my boot.

A quick grumble got the kid's attention. She blinked blearly up at me.

"Don't talk to me now. Not when they're gonna kill you tomorrow."

"If I die, it's my choosing... or my stupidity." I passed the pistol through the warped gap. She stared as though she couldn't believe anyone could've found it.

"Hide it fast." I snapped at her. She listened, though not without giving me a sharpened glare. "Rory passed that on to me. Don't waste his risk, understand?"

"If I die it's my stupidity, ain't it?" She smarted back.

"Mind your business." I grumbled.

She started to argue. Why didn't I fight? How could I give up now? I didn't know how to tell her. All I could say to myself was, after all I'd been through, it seemed so simple.
That was, until Forty's belt made a sound. A sound that instantly made me dizzier, even in its attempted disguise:

"Dante and Virgil in Hell." I shook my head with some kind of shock. By some miracle I remembered the painting. Only she knew the name of that painting. I felt clawed at, straight through the heart. I could feel only dread and terror. She was coming. For me. But she couldn't fight through all this. This place would kill her. The thought of my charge sacrificing themself for.... and when the contract... Oh no. Too much. My breathing pitched a fit again.

By the time I got a handle on myself, I was too tired to explain to Penny what'd warranted such a reaction. I told her to keep her gun close and her head safe, and fell into uneasy sleep. I could not gauge, even in my own heart, whether I was hopeful about Wilde's attempt at rescue or filled with dread.

Time would tell. That didn't make the pain and the nerves any easier, but there it was.

Wilde

We made camp there for the rest of the night. Mei insisted we climb to the top floor, where the roof had been completely blown off. "Can't feel as loud in the open air." She said it shakily as we made our way up the narrow stairs. Dogmeat followed, ever-faithful at my heels.

"Your dog make a lot of noise? I need to scope out the stitch in Paradise Falls and I can't have distractions."

"Dogmeat's as quiet as a field mouse." I countered. That was enough for Mei. The air was crisp and dewy up top. It smelled of rotten wood and dying embers. Mei rolled out a scarf and settled onto it, digging into one of many hand-sewn pockets and pulling out a set of binoculars with her signature shaky-quick speed.

She muttered to herself in whispers while scanning the horizon. I watched Dogmeat settle near her. I eyed every dark crevice and corner for loot or old artifacts, but alas. The top floor was clear. I took a deep, sighing breath and rolled out my cot, giving Mei plenty of space.

There was quiet for some time before she spoke. I felt strange as the silence crept in. All worries and fear bundled up and hurtling towards me---about my father, my partner, the state of the world.
Who were the enclave? What did they want? Was my father still back at Rivet City? I hated backtracking. But oh, this detour was much too important. I was white-knuckled and ripping into my nails again by the time Mei caught my attention.

"The Slaver fucks are scattered." She hissed, "Trying to pick out weapons from that vertiberd crash. We'll enter head on in the morning."

"They still outnumber us in Paradise, don't they?" I chimed as I scanned the outline of Paradise Falls in the valley beyond. Not an attempt to discourage, but to plan.

"I have a plan." She insisted as though she could read my mind, "Follow my lead. And get some rest. You'll need it."

I was worried by her vagueness, but at this point I would do anything to find my friend and get him to safety. Sleep didn't come easy, even in Mei's bubble of pure silence. I prayed I wouldn't have to see Reddin's disfigured body in my dreams again.

Charon

Morning was another nightmare haze and sunlight a burden. One would think by now, I'd be used to the sensation. I growled as soon as I reached consciousness. I only turned my face in the dirt when I felt the wind stir slowly, then pick up speed. The ethereal chimes above the chainlink gate surrounding me rung with the strange cruelty of hope. I blinked the residue of my past nightmares away and became alert when I heard the slavers suddenly bustling with activity.

I caught blips of conversation in the commotion. Penny was the only one awake among the kids next door, watching the minigunner pacing the top of Paradise's fortifications with a shrewd eye.

"A buyer!" I heard one of my captors exclaim. "We've got ourselves a buyer! And.... is that.... ?!" I grit my teeth as commotion stirred and security gates scraped open outside the encampment. The wind picked up as I struggled to stand. The chimes were getting louder in the wavery space between my ears now--a frenzied tune in the mean sunlight.

And then.... her.

I almost didn't recognize her. She was a vision in red and black leather, with the dark-haired woman from the bar by her side. It was their mannerisms that gave them away most: The gal from the bar was identifiable by the restless hands tugging at that unmistakable bloodied headwrap. The confident optimism in Wilde's posture is what gave her away. My heart raced at a queasy pace. The jolt of pain... of missing her... was unexpected as the pair marched further into the encampment. Closer to my unfortunate form.

She hadn't seen me yet. How did they look so certain? My insides jolted with concern as the plot between the pair became clearer. If Mei was a high profile escapee, she must've been playing bait. What then? Strong women, but they were still only two against a camp full of slavers. I did not have the strength to fight at my fullest, and I didn't have the strength to watch her perish. Not so soon after reopening the wounds of Philly's death. I dreaded another good soul lost. I couldn't bear
another love taken from me.

My eyes locked with Wilde's once she reached the bonfire, Sally close by.

Wilde

Mei was outwardly calm from the moment we reached sight of Paradise's doorman. I played the part of a lone raider who'd heard of the price on her head and had fought "legs and nails" (her own strange phrasing) to get her to the nearest trading post for the reward.

I myself didn't want to participate in such an undignified role, but my accomplice insisted it was the only way to free "my man".

"If you play this off and do as I say, Blondie, ...well... just you wait."

Her cheeky wink made me feel a little more at ease.

"It'll be fun!" I was nervous once more. I knew by now from her stories that our philosphies on "fun" differed greatly.

I took a deep breath when we were able to gain entry to Paradise. For the safety of my friend, I would topple mountains. But all the oxygen strength I could muster wouldn't prepare me for the horrors inside. I nearly retched at the sight of heads on spikes along the compound. My resolve felt even more shaken by the time I smelled the sour char of Bhramin meat cooking. Through the haze of the smoke rising from the central pit, I could spy a secured fence, and behind that fence... the shapes of children.

I felt disoriented with the rage. I looked upwards a moment. My usual tactic of grounding myself in immediate surroundings only seemed to worsen the panic. The amount of slavers all gathered and stinking so closeby, the bricks and heads on all sides, the too-clear sky.... my vision felt like it was swimming and spinning. I pinched at my brow and clamped my eyes shut, inhaling until I felt solid again.

When I cleared my gaze, I saw him. Charon. All penned up. My truest friend was badly bloodied and had been half-dragged to hell. My heart ached painfully. He was still standing somehow, with that prideful and fixed meanness. His gaze locked onto mine as though he could sense it, and when he took a step towards me I found the lock in his limbs alarmingly mechanical.

His eyes were frightened and vibrating in his skull. He'd been weeping. Now it was I who felt robotic as I stepped close-as-I-could to the chainlink that seperated my parner and I. My palm found itself resting on the barrier between us. A flicker of light returned to Charon's gaze. Slowy, he lumbered forth, until his laboring chest was inches away from my brow. Our eyes never broke from the other's as he planted his hand to mirror mine on the chainlink.

I recalled that moment atop the monument. I felt a strange tension between my fear we wouldn't get out of this one alive, and the renewed strength.

Regardless, I would do everything in my power to get him out. I tried to relay it in my gaze.
Mei cleared her throat beside me. A reminder to play my part correctly. I took a step back from the fence and put on my best raider face when I noticed Eulogy in the corner of my view. The six foot tall devil was guarded by two women in collars. He was drunk on his ego, judging by the fineness of his clothes.

He clapped and strutted towards me slowly. Groups of slavers parted for him. All ears primed expectantly for his word. I dared not flinch.

"So! You brought the illustrous Sally Hatchet back to me. I never thought this day would come."

His smile was nauseating. I played it off by remaining cooly silent.

"She doesn't talk much." Mei smiled boldly as she shook her bound hands.

"What is your name, friend?" Eulogy held out his hand. I stared at it, chewing the inside of my cheek. His gremlins were all agape and aghast and I almost took a funny kind of laugh out of it all. Eulogy withdrew the gesture with a curt smoothness, adjusting his coattails with a sharp and final motion.

"You want something then, is that it?" He grinned greedily, then pulled a thin cigar from his lapel, "Everyone wants a good trade. Lucky for you, I'm the bird who gets the worm. What'll it be?"
I squinted, waving smoke from my face. Just as Mei had instructed me: "Strong and silent, Blondie. The less you say and the more you stare and wait for that bloated airbag to talk, the better."

Assuredly, he carried on: "Sally is a runaway. All the way from Legion territory, you see. She will likely slit your throat the moment you're alone again. Only I have the proper security for such a... challenging individual. Not a good fit for a lone raider, no. I'll do you one much better..."

Mei's nostrils flared. She shook threateningly in her shackles. It was I who was nearly agape when Eulogy gestured to the pen:

"Here is one who isn't a liar and a thief and a murderer--just a silent, brutish dog."

Charon hung his head. Had it been feasible in that moment, I would've shot down Eulogy right then and there. As though she could sense my thoughts getting off track, Mei elbowed me gently. I saw that Eulogy was still waiting for a response, hands still frozen in their grandstanding.

I cleared my throat and spat, "Let me talk to the ghoul in private."

"What?"

"You heard me." He had to comply. He knew that. Sally was invaluable.

Eulogy tugged at his coattails sharply again. His eyes burned like coal and sliced like daggers, but he nodded in my direction with a cold smile nonetheless. He barked at one of his minions to open the gate and let me inside. Other captives in the pen slinked back against the walls. Charon refused to budge a muscle, staring me down and breathing heavily.

Eulogy gestured to the low brick building in the back corner of the pen. "You will be permitted seclusion in the quarters. Six minutes."

Jotun was the man to lead us there, probably because he was the only raider who could hope to match Charon in size and strength. Charon followed placidly, with me trailing behind and Mei staying close.

The slaves' "quarters" were in a low brick building just a few feet into the pen. It only took Jotun a few seconds to grant us clearance, though it felt like a lifetime.

"Six minutes." Jotun warned again before locking us within the dilapidated quarters.

Charon began pacing restlessly along the thin aisle of empty bunks as soon as Mei gave the clear that the three of us were alone. Questions uncharacteristically poured out of my friend:

"What are you doing here? Are you crazy? There's twenty-some men out there!"

"And? I've got a bag full of explosives and a tiny psychopath."

"I'm... medicated." Mei's voice rose pointedly.

"You and I both know this is suicide." Charon glowered, "You should be looking for your father, not dinking around here! This doesn't matter!! I don't matter!"

He was shaking. I held fast.

"You matter to me." I matched him in graveness and intensity.

"Will you two geckos wrap it up?" Mei was rustling in my pack for a bottle of wine I did not recall bringing. She raised it up triumphantly from her corner before glaring at Charon and me: "Jotun's headed back this way."

The tension and stubborness between Charon and I were palpable. Still, it was good to be near my friend again. I felt I could do anything when he was near. And I would. Comfort and alarm settled in my soul. I found it impossible to tear myself from my companion's gaze. Watching him in my mind's eye was starting to make me wonder.... how he felt when he saw me.

We stepped closer to one another.

There was a violent knocking on the door. Charon and I both jumped, startled.
"Relax! This'll be fun!" Mei shoved that bottle of wine into my arms, looking into my eyes with extra bite, "Like I said.... I'm medicated."

Penny

The mungo women were planning something, I knew that from the moment they were announced. I got a hint of what when the dark-haired woman, positioning herself closest to my side of the fence, bent to tie a boot.

She whispered imperceptibly to anyone but me, "Nice gun you got there. Good little scope. Do you want to help?"

Anything was better than waiting for death. I frowned determinedly and nodded to her.

"Good. I want you to take out one man. The minigunner on the gate tower, see?"

I nodded. I breathed nervously, hoping no one could see her twitching at me. I started to wonder if she was mad.

"On my signal. Watch for the sun."

Her instructions weren't straightforward, and it was beyond me how shooting just one of these slavers out the lot of twenty was going to be of help.

But as I would find out in New Vegas years later, it only takes one person to upset the cogs in a machine.

I bit my lip nervously. I remember glancing to Charon for some kind of hint or sense of his apparent friends' plan, but his defensive scowl was transfixed on the other mungo woman. I wondered if he even noticed the tears building up in the corners of his eyes.

I shifted my focus ahead. Paradise Falls and its rotten denizens lay before me like a great, impossible monster. The sour stench of burnt brahmin and rotting heads filled my nostrils as the wind shifted, sounding the oddly beautiful windchimes again. I felt ill with my nerves.

Eulogy was sizing them all up with a grin. The dark-haired woman looked even more chipper, wearing a smile that was almost... hungry. Mungos were insane, as usual.

In less than 48 hours, the slaver hub would be ash.