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The next day, the sun was a fiery orange brush, painting noonday with shimmering quicksilver below a seamless blue canvas when Justin knelt, panting, by the water’s edge.
Dark inspiration comes in many gaily wrapped packages, he thought dully, dunking his right forefinger into the cool, too-clear water of Cottonwood Creek. Drinks are on me, boys! Shine, little glow worm…Boo! His mind taunted.
He jerked his finger out of the water and wiped it off on his grungy blue duds, then he licked his cracked lips and looked up at the north end of the stream…
“Boo-blue…,” he sang in a shaky, tuneless voice, “I’m so blue…so black and blue…”
…sit down pretty boy, he thought dully. He dropped to his knees by the earthen bank, looking warily at the water, hearing it gurgle and splash – wet wet sooo wet – watching it ripple, reflecting over its stone-bottomed bed, his head pounding, his throat as chaffed and dry as the calf-deep sand he’d waded through since he cleared the ball-busting hairpin curves on Crankshaft Junction.
Too fun, he thought foggily. He licked his lips, and then snapped the top back on his PipBoy – 12:03, it read. And a happy December 8th to you, Justin, his mind chided.
He licked his lips and tried not to think about the 9th.
The Crank was cranky, he thought, staring longingly at the lazily running creek, his mind shying away from tomorrow. A too-cranky precipice – that was the Crank in spades. It nearly had busted his jewels with the longest – and worst – set of slides he had fallen down. It was a prime case of heat stroke, just waiting to happen. An authority on the state of falling rocks – that was him, in black and purple, so he felt qualified to make the call.
Welcome to the wastes, he thought, licking his lips and staring at the creek. The Big “Q”. The Big Top. Come one, come all. Like the answers? Hey, we do it all for you…hope you enjoyed your stay, rube.
Yeeha.
Funny, but for some strange reason, ol’ SR 168 had been on his mind – quite a lot, now that he thought about it – while he was dragging himself around the last shale-and-stone monolith, sopping wet, digging his fingers into the back of a banded lizard instead of a stone shelf he was shooting for. He didn’t know a lizard could be that noisy, but that one had cut loose with a hiss that made his testicles shrivel and…
…why are you thinking about your balls anyway?
“Because they’re in a tight sling,” he grunted. Snappy comebacks for a mindless drifter – that’s you on both ends, he thought, licking his lips. Great. Now he was talking to himself. Yet another sign of his continuing mental decay. Hurry Hurry! All aboard the Sightseer Express! See the sights! Just three fun-filled days to a crispier brain. ‘Round that bend, boy…then fall off the tracks. Fuck it, as Holmes was wont to say. Too fun, Justin thought foggily, lowering his head, fighting the gray swarm behind his eyes.
And losing.
So what’s new? He thought. The Crank? Mr. Lizard? Those was an hour or so ago – that was old news. Like people. Like him. Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Getcha Special Edition heeya!
“Ah doan think so,” he mumbled, lifting his head and staring at the water. “I got the early edition.” All the news that is news. He’d had plenty of time to catch it – after all, he’d been two-stepping it up and down this unpaved excuse for a road since before sunrise.
Spin the wheel, he thought gravely. Big Pine Road…Death Valley Road. My Road…Your Road…Any Road’s a Death Road. It’s all the same to our neutered AM Rambler, chasing down a chip and a dream only to be run down by a nightmare. Serendipity…what a scream.
“Literally,” Justin said, yanking his sunglasses off and squinting into the sky. The heat was searing, but there were no dreams in the daytime, and that made it better – a lot better. If he really was going off his nut, he was going to do it with as much sunshine as he could snag.
He clutched his knees and began to rock backward. Back and forth…back and forth. Sun feels good, he thought. Old Saul was turning him into a shriveled raisin, but the heat was soothing. And it felt good just to sit. He could sit here for hours and hours, baking and shriveling and…relaxing. His eyelids fluttered closed, as his burned face turned toward the sun –
Just relax. Just relax and…
Then his eyelids flew open and he was battling the swarm as he scrambled to his feet. The stars behind his eyes were a clustery gray kaleidoscope, and his breath was coming in short, painful whoops. Not overly healthy, he decided, lowering his head and waiting for it to clear…
The stream was still there when he looked up a moment later. He ran a hand though his matted hair and stared bitterly at the creek – it just sat there, gurgling at him, then he thought with self-disdain that Big Pine was still there, just sitting there like a wake up tonic for every dufus that had to be up early.
It worked for him. Too well, in fact and: “Would you rather be shot or hanged?” was now the question.
And he got to choose the answer.
“Have to, actually,” he said flatly. Because of a dream – an idealistic dream, he thought, swapped one-for-one for a goddamn nightmare that wouldn’t leave him alone. His hand plunged into the stream up to his wrist…soooo cool, he thought, feeling the chill race up his spine, as the cooling current slipped between his bleeding fingers. He wondered if a head full of spooks was a prerequisite for joining the looney clan, or just optional, then he saw the pink runnels seeping from his hand, floating above a too-clear bottom and thought it didn’t matter.
It was just him and the rats anyway. Mr. Rats. And note that plural. There were lots of em. Came in his choice of colors, too – brown, gray. Or red. Small ones, big ones – and huge ones, twice his size. And dead ones. No shortage of dead.
No, sir.
Just him and the fucking rats, he thought. The AM Shambler, one foot down…bumble…trip…and then shoot whatever tries to claw or bite. It was all quite simple, really. There was no one out here and he was an idealistic buffoon. The world was as dead as the chip: he was alone, and running from himself. He’d done a lot of it recently.
The nightmare of Big Pine hadn’t allowed him twenty minutes’ worth of rest last night. That got tiring in a hurry – no pun intended – and he’d scooted headlong out of Hanging Rock Canyon before first light at something resembling a dead run. And enough with the puns, he thought. Waking up time and again with a welling scream locked in his throat wasn’t funny any more. If it ever was.
There had been no rationale in any of it, and he knew it. But when logic hopped into the back seat, that left his own dreamscape terror as the summoner. Just a run through the park after that. Elementary, my dear Watson, Justin thought. All too simple, as in simpleton. He hadn’t been able to outrun himself with his eyes shut, and so, like a gibbering fool, he tried doing it with his bleary orbs open instead, overtaxing himself on the merry-go-round of backbreaking slides and steep grades on The Crank, with only a dribble of water and even less sleep during the whole moronic, rat-slaying process.
And now he was sitting here next to a too-clear, cold-running creek with three drained water flasks, his tongue a thick, dusty block in his mouth, basically terrified by the thought of drinking water he had no way of testing first. Can you say “radiation?” he thought. Or “no Geiger counter?” Or “no test kit?”
“Can you say ‘dehydration’?”, he said aloud and then lapsed into silence, while the word – or more the thought, the realities – behind it, lingered. The implications in it were clear, and had a galvanizing effect on him. And, the crew at home that was depending on him gave him something more to think about. He licked his lips and thought he could die out here…and knew he would, if he didn’t make up his mind.
He wriggled out of his pack, looking thoughtfully at the stream as he laid next to it, flexing the tortured muscles in his shoulders, trying to think past the misty fog in his brain. He thought it odd how the rats were what made him leary of sampling the water in the first place. The bear-sized ones, especially. They were on the road farther back, rotting in the sun – four tangled furballs that shot the warning flag up in his head after he shot them.
“Thanks again for the reminder, gang”, he croaked, thinking that radiation had played the chromosome boogie on whatever kind of rats they were. Or had been. Radiation was the queen of unfamiliar breeds, but he hadn’t honestly expected to see any of her scuttling new hatchlings grow to that size. The Natural Order was definitely Out of Order. Please refer to Science Holodisk 472 – Radiation: Cause and Effect.
And then fill in the blanks, he thought with sudden interest, his eyes taking in the stone and sand at the bottom of the stream. Radiation had remained abundant, while water had become scarce. Obviously, he told himself, thinking of tomorrow, while tightening his nerve. What splashes of water he had seen in the higher elevations were clear…and, he reasoned, would have filtered through the same rocky sediment for decades.
That should have removed most of the radiation up thar, he thought. But the nosebleed elevations west had since been halved by him and his tired dogs, and here in this sizzling, ten-mile long trough in the lower reaches, there was a lesser chance for some badly needed runoff.
The war giveth, then Mother Earth taketh away…
But how much?
He swallowed hard – his throat clicked dryly, and that did it. He slipped his glasses on and thought that sometimes, he thought too much. The risk was monstrous – like playing Russian roulette with Rems instead of a gun. The choice wasn’t the greatest, but the alternative was an iron-clad certainty.
Take a stab a living or throw in towel, he told himself. Give it up? Roll over and die? Not him. It might happen tomorrow, but not today. Sand dunes, cave ins, rats and all, he wanted to live.
“Even if it means tramping through the dead”, he muttered, crouching now, his skin tingling, alive with its own anxious current, as his cupped hands dropped into the water…
“Well, I’ll be,” came a stout voice from behind. “Look what the wind’s blown over my way, sun-baked an all.”
Justin lurched forward at the sound, his thighs screaming in protest. Cramps!…Oh cramps! he thought, hissing between his teeth as angry dragon flames devoured his legs. His hands flew out instinctively, then a cold spray splashed his face – he came to a jarring stop, half-in and half-out of the stream, his head hanging down, draped an inch over the water, like a drunken hunchback between his loudly protesting shoulders. He looked at his splayed fingers – they were still there, he calmly noted, refusing to acknowledge what was obviously his own impending delirium. All eight, plus two thumbs, he thought, with a sigh of relief. All digits, present and accounted for.
Better still, there were no voices now. He thought that was pretty damn all right, too. He tilted his head lower – his feet were anchored firmly on the dirt. His thighs were quivering like bowstrings, and he was up to his elbows in untested water. Straddled between shore and sea with my tush up for high tide, he thought, looking between his legs…
…and seeing an upside-down shadow, standing at the edge of the road.
A man’s shadow, he thought absently.
“Do you need a hand, lad?” the shadow asked, not unkindly.
Justin shook his head without realizing he had. With some effort, he calmly shoved himself backward, wincing as his butt landed on shore. He thought it strange that a shadow could speak at all, let alone with a faint Irish accent, then he looked behind him…
The Irish shadow-man was still there.
He turned back, and made himself count to ten. Then he looked behind him again…
Now the shadow-man was waving at him. Finally believing what he was seeing, Justin sat there, letting it sink in. A human, he thought, slightly bewildered. And again…a human…a human being…
It was all he could think of. A live human, his mind chattered. Homo Sapiens…a person…a people, the find of a lifetime…his lifetime. And in that instant, the constant worrying and nagging doubts, his ravenous thirst, the fears, every twitching ache and pain was instantly – and mercifully – abated. A pre-Merry Christmas gift, Justin thought. Ho-Ho-Ho. He could feel all of his nasty miseries being carried off, swept away by his sight of an honest-to-goodness human being, one that was walking and smiling and breathing and pushing a wooden cart…
…and wearing what looked like a pre-war suit of Motorcycle Football armor. Then Justin saw the rows of brightly polished brass studs running along its cracked leather seams. He knew the frills were non-standard…and could feel something inside him crumble.
He thought it might have been Hope, as the warning flag in his head rose to half-mast.
“A good day to you, traveler,” the bearded man said, his voice carrying well on the clear afternoon air.
“And the same to you, sir,” Justin said equably, now unsure of how much to say. He found his feet and started toward the road, the numbness from the brisk water and his inaugural surprise quickly wearing off.
“Sir?” the man said, smiling. “Well, thank you. Didn’t mean take you by surprise an all, but I was a bit surprised myself, findin you here like this.” He cast a curious glance at the creek. “That water any good for drinkin?”
Justin stopped, and then held his hands out, palms up. “Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t have any test equipment…I was about to find out the hard way.”
“I think I can do a might better than guess,” the man said with a note of seriousness. “Dry yourself off, and I’ll be back before you have.”
Justin watched the thickset man return to his spoke-wheeled cart, and begin rumaging through the back of it. He grabbed a towel from his pack, and then found himself staring weightily at the Colt inside it.
“For the bad guys”, he said quietly, drying his hands with care. The man seemed friendly and sociable enough: he wasn’t the problem – his leather escort was. Justin remembered it from a session in the Vault library.
Motorcycle Football had been a highly popular collision sport, a regular arenafest way back when. The ball was round and the crowds were huge, and leather rigging they used for it was just that – rigging. It was basic construction; layers of cowhide, stitched together, then jammed over your head and laced down along the sides, like padding. The suits had been no-frills, mass-production carcasses, stripped down for the track, with no extra baubles. They’d been designed to handle impact – they were a defense, and the leather he was seeing was being worn as casually as a t-shirt – meaning someone had an ongoing offense somewhere.
He knew he should be turning cartwheels, backflips and walking on his hands: he should have been delirious and overjoyed, but he wasn’t. The fact of it was, the armor bothered him, and not because he wasn’t wearing it – because of what it stood for; what it symbolized. MoBall was a thing of the distant past, but its culture sure as hell had been combat-oriented. And what, Justin asked himself with a hint of annoyance, are the chances of the first live person you meet being all decked out in fighting gear?
He thought of the stacks of arsenals he had envisioned, waiting to be picked up, and found himself not wanting to examine the answer too closely. He’d thought the big toys were still out here – but now he knew there were still-busy hands to use them. It was as if the answers to every question he’d ever thought of were being dumped on him all at once. Open wide, then let it fall. And fall. The mysterious allure of the consummate question mark was fast losing its luster.
Just seeing another breathing body had breathed life into him only to have it sucked out during his next breath. The curse of the terminal dreamer, he thought. Cindy had dropped that tag him that more times than he could count, and hers wasn’t the only estimate. Ken and David and Theresa had all the same thing, while he had dared recreate the fragments of a new world in his mind. If that made him a dreamer, then maybe he was – if so, they could vilify him later. The acreage he was plodding through now was nothing like what he had “dreamed”, but he was still starchy enough to realize he had asked for what he got. Now he had it…
And every clarification bred new questions.
Old Murph wasn’t around, and he thought he had walk on his own sometime. Just knowing that people were still on the prowl was reassuring, but people were hopelessly social creatures – if you found one, there was sure to more traipsing around somewhere. Humanity inevitably sought out its own, just as he had – and now it was that same innate ability to unite and then create that seemed like a double-edged sword to him, a mixed blessing at best. It was possible that some sort of resurrected society was busily at work out here, but at what? Were they trying to put it back together? Or finding new ways to tear it down?
He didn’t know, but he could feel Hope rearing its head, lunging and bucking at the starting gate. Then he looked down at his beaten hands, and could still see the dead faces in the nothingness he had crossed.
He thought it didn’t mesh well.
In a one-time nation where dreams were now stillborn, he decided that he would cling to no more of its illusions. The world had been out of control before…and somewhere between the rows of brightly polished studs on an old chunk of cowhide, he thought that eighty-five years later, not much had changed.
Realizing it – and learning to accept it – turned his stomach, but from today forward, he would assume that combat gear was being worn today for the same reasons as yesterday. And that alone make him want a slab of leather to call his own…with or without the studs.
And a Geiger counter, Justin thought now, adding to his mental wish list. Just like the one the man was carrying down the slope.
“A man’s got to have an awful thirst to be dippin into this without knowing what’s in it first,” the man said, kneeling by the bank.
“I can’t argue with that,” Justin said, as the man swept the counter over the water twice. “I didn’t want to, but without any equipment, I had no choice. I’m glad you showed up when you did.”
“Well, looks as though you’re luck’s in twice today,” the man said, turning the counter toward Justin.
“Three”, Justin smirked, reading the display’s single blue digit aloud. Three was a fantastic number – a healthy number – a number he could live with. And through. He thought that Wattz Electronics was the all-time greatest ex-company in the ex-world, and then, fighting a strong urge to dive into the water, he hauled his flasks out, and began filling them, relieved to know that his eyelids would stay put for now.
The man laid the counter down next to a barrel-sized jug and three aluminum canteens. Then he picked the jug up, and began filling it. “I don’t see too many folks wanderin west of the settlements these days,” he said casually. “Much less any that call me ‘sir’. What brings you out this far?”
“I’m just…making my way east,” Justin acknowledged. He tipped a full flask up and drank slowly, his pores opening in gratitude, while another flask filled. He wiped his mouth, liking the clean, mineral taste of it – it was fresh, when you got right down to it. Much better than Vault water. He hoped he could keep himself from guzzling too much of it at once. He didn’t need any water cramps right now. Or later.
“I see,” the man said, smiling, as he looked the filthy stranger up and down with an appraising eye. “So you’re a roustabout. Much like myself, then. I take it you’re not from nearby?”
“That’s close enough for today,” Justin admitted, grimacing at the irony, as he stowed his last flask. He climbed slowly to his feet and reshouldered his pack, the word “settlements” ringing ominiously in his ears. Homesteads…where? And good, or not so good? He didn’t know – again – and with only the barest hint of a clue to work with, he was becoming uncomfortably aware of there being a lot more out here than miles of desolation.
The man tightened the cap on his last canteen, then, favoring Justin with a skeptical look, he got up and draped the canvas strap across his neck, letting the canteen fall behind his shoulders. He snatched the heavy five-gallon jug up by its handle, managing the extra weight with ease as they walked up the low slope to the road in silence.
Justin was stealing glances at the man, as they crested the slope, looking at his ruddy features and deep desert tan, his leather mocs and patched cotton clothes. Now he looked at the man’s cart, then it occurred to him how completely out of place he must look. Like a grain of pepper in a salt shaker, he thought, rubbing a hand across one of his dirty sleeves. Who was he kidding? His own clothing had given him away, then he asked himself how many people he knew who accepted differences that drastic in others with a smile?
One person came immediately to mind.
D.C., Justin thought, and then felt a little foolish for not seeing past the pieces of leather. The man was no threat; he had been decent and kind – and Justin realized he didn’t even know his name. He was tolerant as well, the kind of man Justin decided he would trust on short notice.
Like there was a choice? He thought, looking at the tools and wire, and other knickknacks in the man’s frame cart. There was clay pottery, bowls and dishes in there…a green and white ice chest…an office chair, he saw…and a couple of musty wooden crates, filled with unknown treasures for good measure. Today was in there – there was more parked inside that homespun cart he didn’t know about than he’d picked up while his can was parked in the Vault. It was as if he were starting school again, and the similarity ended there. In school, no one took your life away while you were cramming for new curriculums – or if you coughed up a wrong answer when test time rolled around. He didn’t care for the thought, or the feeling of defenselessness that came with it…then he saw himself as a toddling child, and thought it was part of the learning.
That was enough.
“Listen,” Justin began, “I’m sorry if I seem a little standoffish, but this is new territory for me...and it’s been a long trip. I’m not from anywhere around here. I’m from farther west.”
“Forgive me for saying so,” the man replied, cinching a swatch of burlap over the cart, “but I’d already gathered that.” He pointed a stubby finger at Justin’s grubby clothes, then added: “Can’t say as I know how far west you’re from, but you look to be in a fine rush to be elsewhere.” He paused for a second, then stuck his right hand out. “The name’s Patrick Blandon. An who might you be?”
“Justin Marshall,” Justin said, shaking the Irishman’s hand, uncertain of where to begin classes – or if they even would. Finally, he nodded at the cart and said: “That’s…quite a junk collection you have there.”
Patrick smiled indulgently. “It’s hardly what I’d call junk, lad. It’s trade goods. I wander from place to place, making my living with music an a bit of tinkering work, here an there.” And now his smile flattened into a sly grin. “I thought surely you’d know that. Are there no craftsman where you come from?”
“There are,” Justin said, smiling at the man’s shrewd, perceptive demeanor. “Quite a few, in fact.” His own inquisitive eyes were drawn to Patrick’s clear, intelligent ones. Patrick looked at him appraisingly, but that knowingly wry smile remained. Finally, Justin exhaled slowly and said: “Patrick, I don’t know familiar you are with this, but the ‘west’ I said I’m from, is a Vault.”
“Really now?” Patrick exclaimed, sounding genuinely surprised. “You don’t say. I’ve heard tales about the great Vaults but that was quite some time ago, mind you. Truth to tell, I didn’t believe anyone still lived in them, but…well…” He stroked his beard for a moment, as if deciding this for himself, then he seemed to shift mental gears. “Well, I’d have to say them Vaults must still be goin, ‘cause here you are, all decked out in blue an yellow. From all I’d heard about them big burrows, this must be quite a change for you.”
“It is,” Justin agreed, making a mental note to find some different clothes. “And if you’re going west, I can honestly say it’ll be a fifty mile waste of your time. You’re the first living soul I’ve seen since I left.”
“Don’t I know that feeling,” Patrick said truthfully. “There’s folks out here, but they aren’t all that easy to find. Not be nosin into your affairs, but with you living under the earth an all, why would you be out here now? Did that Vault of yours open?
“No, it’s still closed,” Justin said, then something occurred to him. “You said you’re a tinker?”
“That I am.”
“Then you must be pretty good with hardware. Working with your hands, that sort of thing.”
Patrick shrugged. “I get by, an that’s enough for me.”
“What kind of work do you do?” Justin asked, scratching the thickening brown coat on his cheeks. He was going to be as bearded as Patrick before long. Then he thought that a little trust in this man might benefit them all.
“Oh, electrical and mechanical, mostly,” Patrick said with a touch of pride. “In fact, I helped Junktown out with their generator and lighting not long ago. The folks there don’t know much about that sort of thing, but a bit of cleaning and a touch of rewiring was all it took. Fixed em up good and proper. Their lights were shining fine when I set out for Shady Sands sometime last week. Left there a couple of days ago, right after I showed em a better design for their stoves.”
Junktown…Shady Sands…Stoves…and Electricity, Justin thought. Towns, and power. Crank up those lights, boys: the answers were coming fast. There was a lot out here, and not all of it was on the downside – Doubt was losing its stuff, and Hope was starting to charge up the backstretch.
“Are you doing anything now?” Justin asked. “I mean, are you very busy?” He hoped not. What he had in mind was a longshot, but he thought it might pay off.
“Can’t say that I am at this second,” Patrick said jokingly. “I was headin to where you’re coming from, but think I my mind’s been changed for me. Why?”
“My Vault has what’s called a water chip,” Justin explained. “It’s a computer circuit – more or less the brains that controls a water purifying system. The chip is the our only means of assuring that we have clean water, and it decided to stop working. We don’t have the parts to repair it, and now the Vault is running out of water. I’m supposed to be looking for a replacement chip at another Vault to the east, and that’s why I’m out here. But, I was thinking…maybe you could repair ours?”
“Sounds like you’ve a bad way to go,” Patrick said, frowning. “Believe me, Justin, I’d like to help you, but I don’t think I’d be very much. I haven’t seen one of those chips before. Never had much of a chance to study any pre-war technology.” He shrugged. “Not that there’s many out here who have, mind you. I might be able to lend another sort of hand, if you’re willing.”
“Such as?” Justin asked, stooping to pick a blade of dry grass.
“Well, with you being fresh to the wastes and all, do you know how to get to where you’re going?”
Justin didn’t offer a word in reply – he simply opened the top on his PipBoy. Patrick blinked in wonder as the screen unfolded…then he smiled in delight.
“I have a fairly good idea of where I’m going,” Justin said, pointing out Vault 15’s location. “But all of the maps I’m using are pretty old, and it sounds like a lot has changed while I was away.”
“That it has,” Patrick said ponderously, studying the map display. “Quite a little gadget you have there. Trouble is, these things are like all the other old tech – useless without people around to keep it up to date. I don’t know if this’ll help you or not, but I can see you’re a ways from where you need to be. If you can add other things to that map an have the time for it, I can show you the whereabouts of some of the larger settlements.”
“For that,” Justin said with a hint of excitement, “I can make all the time you need. And thank you.”
“My pleasure, young man,” Patrick said. “That’s the least I can do for a new arrival. Come on, let’s get ourselves turned around, then I’ll fill you in on our way east.”
Patrick grabbed the slim, polelike handles on the cart, and hoisted the business end of it…then promptly set it down when Justin offered the PipBoy to him.
“You seem to be very fond of old tech,” Justin said, “and I really appreciate your help. I’ve got about a thousand questions with no answers, and believe me, I could use some.” He held the PipBoy out. “Logging data on this thing is just knowing what buttons to push. I’d be happy to show you how, and…I can push the cart while you mark the map. I thought it would give us a chance to talk…and you a chance to mess around with some pre-war tech for a while.”
“I believe I’d like that.” Patrick said simply. Then he took the PipBoy, his eyes keen with interest as he began pouring over map labels by a column of red buttons along the display. A pile of antique circuits, Justin thought, smiling, as he looked on. Just a husk from another, extinct time…and a meaningful piece in the chaff of what remained, he could see…in his pile of antique circuits, held gently in two callused hands with something akin to reverence.
Happy Holidays, he thought, shaking the dust from his hair, as he walked to the cart. A chuckwalla disappeared into a patch of bracken off the road ahead, as he lifted the cart up and down, hefting it, testing the weight. It wasn’t bad. The load was level, and the weight was evenly distributed – balanced. He was a manual laborer now. That was new, but the sand drifts weren’t. He thought that a little balance wouldn’t hurt.
He turned the cart around and wheeled it over to Patrick, who was looking off to the west. He was very quiet, and there was a distant, far away cast in his eyes.
“Is something wrong?”
“No no,” Patrick chuckled. “Things are right as they can be. It’s just that I’ve always used the coastline as a reference, an this is the first time I’ve ever seen the shore laid out all at once. Always wondered what it looked like in the altogether. Never thought I’d live to see it, but…” He scratched his head and then nodded to himself. “Well, no matter. Now I have. Are you ready?”
“Yes, sir,” Justin said.
“Don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” Patrick admitted, as he began to mark the map, pointing out the living in the reclaimed towns and villages, explaining the new world to Justin, as they moved southeast.
“What you have is Shady Sands…here,” Patrick went on, the flatlands growing distant, while they paralleled Slate Ridge. “About a week inland on Indar Trail, a ways off Nevada 267. It’s just around the corner from us, and about half way to that other Vault of yours, I’d say. Shady Sands is a small farming community, led by Sundara Aradesh, a kind and decent man…and strong leader, I’ll add. That certainly doesn’t hurt. If you’ve occasion to stop there, I believe you’ll find they’re a peaceful, hard-working people. Probably our best chance for a new civilization.”
Justin nodded at Patrick’s armor. “You said that you did some work for them. Do they have a…trading post, or something like that?” He didn’t know what else to call it.
“They don’t have anything like that, but Junktown’s a few days south of there, east off…California 14, it is. That’s about fifteen, maybe twenty miles south of the fork off Three Parks Road – ”
“Where?” Justin asked, balancing the cart, and leaning to his right.
“Right here.” Patrick said, pointing to a red ribbon in the center of the display.
US 395, Justin thought uneasily, feeling a needlelike rush of protectiveness sweep over him as he looked at the bending line. The northern run of it was, oh…about three miles west of Vault 13. Wonderful.
“I take it the road was renamed because of the parks?”
“That is was,” Patrick confirmed. “I see you know your history. It supposedly picked up its name from a peddler from after the war with an eye on the same. Nobody knows his name any more, but the title stuck. Now, Three Parks is probably the best-known, and most heavily traveled road out here.” He glanced at Justin. “You look a bit pale. The heat getting to you?”
“No, I’m all right,” Justin said half-heartedly. “I was just thinking about something. Please, go on.”
“As you like,” Patrick said doubtfully. “Now as I was saying, Junktown’s a small trading city. You can find decent goods an gear there, but other than that, it’s not too remarkable. It’s run by a man named Killian Darkwater, the sheriff, mayor, and local shopkeeper. Does a little bit of everything. Killian’s a hard, but fair man…and always seems to be buttin heads with a group of gangers there…or with Don Gizmo, a gambling mogul and crimelord.” Patrick shook his head. “It’s just different, a strange place until you get used to it…”
Gold Mountain stood silent on the morning side of Last Chance Range, as the men plunged deeper into the southeast. The sun rode their backs above a cloudless sky as they walked and sweltered through the hottest part of the day, while Patrick spoke at length of the rat infested tent towns and encampments which had risen south and west near the fallen cities of Cartago and Lone Pine, Little Lake and Ridgecrest. The names went on as they did, and to Justin, seemed endless, a disheartening roll call of the diseased and impoverished; guttering pockets of life, barely existing in a land that was once called “Free”.
California City…Randburg. Gold Point…Keeler…Mojave…Rosamond. Fresno…Panoche…Palmdale…China Lake. The blighted, drought-stricken towns rolled off Patrick’s tongue, one after another while the deep sand on Big Pine Rd. lessened to shifting tendrils. There was finality in his words, and the doom sense began to creep over Justin, growing and spreading, then tightening its icy grip, as he trundled the cart down miles of barren road. What he had envisioned and held to for years could not be seen after he left…and then it suddenly appeared. The towns and people were there…but they weren’t. There were people and cities…if either could be called that. The means for a rebirth was there…and it wasn’t. Electricity was there to power the growth…and there was hardly anyone left to use it.
It was the great there, not there, like an ad-lib midway show on some low-rent carnival act. He felt as if he had stumbled into a house of mirrors where every image was distorted and nothing was what it appeared to be. His spirits were lower than the sun when they crossed a two-lane bridge southwest of Scotty’s Castle, and with the day nearly spent, they stopped to rest, while the dreary litany continued…
“…and then, if you stay on southbound 14, you’ll cross 58, right here,” Patrick said, tapping his fingertip on the map. “That’ll turn into 138. There’s a branch road that veers off to your left, about ten miles after that. Might have been a business route or something of the like in the other time. Today, it’ll take you to the ruins near Lancaster. There’s a turnoff north of there runnin to the east along with a few signs to mark it for you. Follow it and you’ll find the Hub.”
“The Hub,” Justin parroted around a mouthful of concentrates. He washed the bland paste down with a swig of water, then asked: “Where did they come up with a name like that?”
“Well, I suppose it’s because the Hub’s the major tradin center around here,” Patrick said, reaching for a canvas zippertop bag at his feet. “It’s a couple days south of Junktown, all told, an the biggest city I know of. It’s said you can find anything there, and I’d say that’s not too far wrong, if at all.”
Justin tossed the rest of the concentrate tube into his pack. He didn’t feel like eating. “More gloom and dispair in the south?”
“It’s not all gloom and dispair there,” Patrick confided, producing a hard slab of meat and a short-bladed knife from the bag. “There is an…element…I’ll call it, that’s anything but good,” he went on, slicing the meat into thin strips. “But the Hub’s a big place, with a lot of decent folks in it…must be a thousand people there. Maybe more.”
“A *thousand* people?” Justin burst out, and then abruptly fell silent. He stared blankly at his chewed up hands, not wanting to hear any more. Growth in crime lords and gambling moguls? A renewal in gangs and armor and rats and dry watersheds and only God knew what else? And now there was an “element”.
Elements? he thought bitterly. Torn tent flaps flopping over an acre of sewer hole while the families inside ate rat for dinner – those were elements.
So were tritium and uranium.
It was a farce, a fucked up trick; another chain reaction slight of hand. He wondered if the shock would ever subside, then he thought that the real illusion was him thinking he had no more. His mouth quivered at the thought, and then his face began to work, the skin below his cheeks drawing up, stretched tightly across his jaw, as if he were forcing himself to swallow some inert thing, large and choking…
Like a doorknob that wouldn’t go down.
He looked up and, very softly, said: “There’s six or seven times that many people west of here, Patrick. They’re easy to find because they’re all in one place. Convieniently located. Just look anywhere in Big Pine…everywhere…they’re stacked up like cordwood.” His flicked a hand to the south, and then his voice rose to a fervid, desperate pitch. “A thousand people in the Hub? Jesus, that’s *it*? My Vault has more people in it than that! There’s *fourteen hundred* there, safe and sound and that’s the difference…they’re a-alive…”
And then the words died, as Justin stood there with it lodged in his throat, mouth working soundlessly, his arms open wide, embracing the emptiness in the gathering twilight, his dirty young face a besieged and shattered mask, as he gasped: “What happened out here? What *happened*? Where *is* it? It’s been *eighty-five* years, Patrick. Eighty-five years, and it’s all just gangs and rat camps and infections? Where’s the progress? Where’s the people? Wh-Wh-Where’s the…”
He hitched in a rasping breath and turned his head.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Patrick said after a while. “Except that, sometimes, dreams die hard…and this is what’s left of the one’s that died a long time ago.” Then he pushed himself up, and thought as he walked to his cart, that even young men who were all grown up wouldn’t care much for getting caught with their eyes wet.
“No, that wouldn’t do at all,” Patrick said under his breath, as he raised the flap, and pulled a rolled up wicker mat and a wood crate from the back. Humming quietly to himself, he untied a loop of twine around the mat as he walked back, then he stopped and unrolled it at Justin’s feet.
“What’s this for?” Justin asked hoarsely, as the crate was placed in front of him.
“A bit of a cure for what ails you,” Patrick said, patting Justin’s shoulder. “If you don’t mind, that is.”
Justin wiped his nose, and smiled wanly. “I guess not. I’m sure it beats self-pity.”
“By a fair margin,” Patrick said, picking up the zippered bag. “But there’s really no need to be hard on yourself. This damnable land’ll do that for you.”
“Yeah,” Justin sighed, looking at the crate. He felt as hollow inside as it was. Christ, he’d bawled like a newborn. Welcome to the changes, he thought miserably. Open wide, then let it fall…and fall.
“Oh, it’s a damnable land,” he said shakily. “So I see…I just never thought it…it’s just…it’s…”
“A lot for anyone accept all at once,” Patrick finished with a slow wink. “Especially for someone from out of town, so to speak.” Then he wiped the crate off, and set two green balls on it. “Go ahead; cheer yourself up with one of those. I plan to.”
Justin wasn’t sure if the tears were done, as he picked up a ball…and saw that it wasn’t a ball at all. He sniffled, then he ran a hand through his hair and thought it could be a fruit of some kind. Exactly what kind, he was at a loss to say. He turned it over in his hands…over…and again…and thought that home had *never* produced anything like it. The thing had to be a product of the war – it was green mostly, and about the size of a golden delicious apple – but it had mutated from something or other. He pushed his thumbnail into it – the skin was thick, with brownish tints and wartlike bumps below a twiggy “V” stem. He tossed into the air and caught it – it was surprisingly heavy for its size. He didn’t know whether to eat it or throw it at a rat. If Patrick was trying take his mind off his worries, he’d succeeded.
“What is this thing?” Justin asked with frank wonder.
“Got your curiousity up, does it?”
“Plenty.”
“Good,” Patrick said heartily. “It was supposed to. What you got there is an Orava, and before you ask, no; I don’t what the devil it is. It might be a fruit, or not. All I know is, they’re good. You bring a knife?”
“I sure did,” Justin said. “There’s one in my pack.” He slipped out of his diminishing bundle and began pawing through it. My pack, it came to him. It sounded possessive. Hey, you! Get away from *my* pack!
And when exactly had the pack suddenly become “his”? The straps on it had cut ribbons into his shoulders during his first day. He could barely tolerate his loyal nylar pal then…and he had gotten used to it, had learned to rely on it. And what about the PipBoy, that pile of obsolete circuits that Patrick had fallen in love with? It really was a nothing little box – it paled in comparision to the mainframes in Central Core. It was a pile of second-class circuits…that he now counted on. It was “his”, as well. It wasn’t “the” pack or “a” Pip Boy anymore. Both had become invaluable, and in a very short time.
Justin thought they really were “his”, and felt better for it, more in sync. He shot an appreciative glance at Patrick, and was grateful for the timely distraction, summoned by this latter day son of Dublin.
If a blarney stone had been handy, Justin would have kissed it.
“Okay,” he said, holding the knife out with both hands in a swordlike fashion. “Now what?”
Patrick only smiled at the resilience of youth, as he picked up the other Orava. “Now, the skin on these things is tougher than old Brahmin hide,” he said, “but gettin inside is worth the effort. There’s a weak spot at the top by the stem, and if you work the tip of your knife into the skin an then give the blade a quick snap forward, the blessed thing’ll split clean down the side. Works every time. Go on now an give it a try.”
Justin went at it with renewed enthusiasm, the tip of his tongue sticking out as he worked the knife into the Orava. His mouth began to water, as he shoved the knife in deeper…pushing it in, until he could see the juice pooling around the blade. Then he twisted the knife hard and snapped it toward him…
The Orava’s skin split open, as if he had pulled an invisible zipper. Juice ran freely down both sides of the ruptured skin and onto his hands…and the scent was incredible. Delicious, he thought, hurriedly slicing the fruit into quarters.
He stuck one of the wedges into his mouth…and then puckered, as a starburst of citrus seemed to blossom on his tongue. He was drooling…and didn’t mind at all.
“Well?” Patrick asked with a wide grin.
“Uh-frrmmm,” Justin started and then gave up. He jammed another wedge into his mouth, savoring the fruit’s strong, heady aroma. It tasted every bit as good as it smelled…but was so different from anything he had ever had before. It was sweet like an orange…or a mango, maybe…but it was tart, like a lime…
And still, it didn’t taste like any of those. He thought it was good though. There had to be more juice in one of these things than the watermelons he had read about. And juice was good, about now. They had covered a lot of miles, and he was still in dire need of fluids.
“You feelin a bit better?” Patrick inquired.
Justin wiped his mouth and nodded. “Yes…and I don’t know how to thank you.”
“None needed,” Patrick said. He was holding the PipBoy up, but looking off to the northeast. “I’ve had a fine day…but that could change before long.”
Justin turned, and now he was looking in the same direction. “What do you mean?”
Patrick had started back to his cart. “The wind’s blowin the sound away, but if you listen carefully, you might catch it.”
Now what? Justin thought, arching backward as he stood, watching and listening, as twilight deepened. The wind held, low and steady, coaxing sand into drifts at his feet, while Patrick returned with a gun tucked into his belt. Justin glanced at the gun uneasily, as the wind shifted into his face, and then back…and in that second, he heard it…a chittering sound, faint and far off. Even from this distance, it sounded large. And unhealthy. The hair on the back of his neck felt prickly.
“Think you can tolerate more ‘gloom and doom’ now?” Patrick asked, checking the loads in his gun.
“I think that’s already been decided,” Justin said and then stepped back, listening, as he wiped the juice off the knife blade. He tossed it into his his pack and grabbed the Colt. “What was that?” he asked.
“What you heard was a Radscorpion,” Patrick said, reseating himeslf.
Justin shuffled his feet. “Shouldn’t we be standing guard or something?”
Patrick shook his head. “Not now. They’re probably four or five miles away. If they move closer, we’ll know it. If there’s more than one, you’ll hear a loud, steady clacking when they get close. That’s from their claws. That’s how they signal each other while they’re huntin.”
“These…Radscorpions are mutations, right?” Justin asked, brushing some dirt off the gun’s slide.
“What they are is nasty,” Patrick said. “They’re some sort of regular scorpion that started growing after the war, and didn’t stop. They look like a normal ‘scorp, except now the biggest ones are thirteen, maybe as much fourteen feet long, not counting their tail, of course. They’re quick an about as mean as hell. Between their claws and stinger, they’re a load.”
“The Natural Order,” Justin said softly.
“Pardon?”
Justin shrugged. “Nothing…I’m just being numb.” Fourteen feet, he thought, ejecting the clip from the Colt. Bear-sized rats and bedroom-sized arachnids. Culture shock was alive and well, and it was just beginning. A toddling child? That was a little on the high side of optimism. He reloaded the clip and thought that crawling in diapers was more like it. He felt as if he were in fourteen feet over his head, and the shore was a long way off. He pursed his lips, then he blew out a long breath, and thought he’d better learn how to swim.
And quick.
“Okay…give me the rest of it. Good, bad…all of it.”
“The rest of it,” Patrick mused, reaching into his pants pocket. “That might come in useful.” He pulled out a rusty bottle cap, and flipped it to Justin. “Let’s start with something a bit brighter.”
“Nuka-Cola,” Justin said, reading the cap’s faded blue printing aloud. “All right, what’s this for?”
Patrick nodded at Justin’s gun. “I’d heard there used to paper bills an such, but now that cap’s a part of the economy. You’re going to need better equipment, an that means you need to know how to go about getting it.”
“With a tin bottle cap?” Justin asked, grinning.
“That’s part of it,” Patrick chuckled. “Most folks barter for what they need, an you’ll start running into merchants and traders when you get farther east. They make their livin by traveling a circuit to the different town and settlements, but most all of them get their stock from the Hub. Now, the caps’re backed by all the mechant houses there, and they’ll cover any difference in the value of the hard goods you trade. Everybody out here accepts em; they all treat those caps like money, and they are, I suppose.”
A barter system? Justin thought. How about that, folks? Vault-Tec had finally nailed one. According to the Survival Guide, in a post-nuclear world, currency would be another thing of the past, replaced by barter as the primary means of exchange. Chapter 4, Page 31 –
Stick it, Theresa.
He wondered if she would be faring any better at this moment. He doubted it.
“All right, Patrick. What’s next?”
“That would be raiders,” Patrick said flatly. “There’s other desert vermin to deal with, but the clans are the worst of the two-legged lot. And the desert’s where you’ll find most of em, living on the outskirts of the encampments, an stealing from folks that don’t have much to begin with. They don’t give me much trouble, I’m happy to say, but they’re a pain in everyone’s behind.” He thought for a moment, then he picked up the PipBoy and said: “I’m going to mark one more place for you, but this one comes with a serious word to the wise. It’s right here, out on 58, east of what’s left of Barstow. It’s called Necropolis, and I’m only putting it here because going there’s not worth your trouble.”
“Hey, what’s one more bad spot,” Justin said. “A lot of problems there?”
“Problems, you say,” Patrick said evenly. “Might be a bit of an understatement, but that’s a fair way of puttin it. You see, Justin, Necropolis is inhabited by ghouls, an – ”
“*Ghouls*?” Justin cut in. “The stuff of holomo…you’ve got to be kidding.” The unreal sense was trying to wash over him again. This time, he shoved it back.
“Not in the least,” Patrick said. “I’ve seen the place for myself…once, quite a while ago, and I suppose that’s why some call it the City of the Dead.” He shook his head in a slow, uneasy manner, as if recalling it. “I can tell you that much of the name is right and true. A sad state of affairs is what it is, one that’s been going on for a very long time. Them ghouls are supposed to be descendants of humans who sought shelter in a Vault there; like yours, or so the story goes. The Vault failed somehow or other, and now the only residents are those carrion-eating monsters.”
Justin was looking at the map display with sudden intensity. “Do you know what happened there?”
“I don’t have any idea,” Patrick said. “Why it all happened the way it did, I couldn’t say. But I’d surely stay away from there, if I were you.”
“That might not be possible,” Justin said, looking up from the newly marked spot on the map, the same spot that Josh had set out for what seemed like an eon ago. Vault 12, Justin thought. Ghouls? Carrion-eating monsters? How far did this insanity go on? And did it end?
The thought was unsettling, but now he had to add a ruptured Vault to his list of circus attractions. And if Vault 12 had failed, then what about Vault 15? Had it opened? The land was harsh and unforgiving, but it was inhabitable. If Vault 15 hadn’t failed, then it should’ve opened by now.
And what about 15? And *13*? He thought, recalling the lay of the land. What of those two highly isolated locales? What about old weapons stations and military playgrounds, and no all-clear signal for decades?
And *what* about…
…I didn’t believe anyone still lived in them…
…what Patrick had said?
And then there was Josh, and the unmerciful south he had disappeared into. It was possible that he was still alive. If the Vaults really had opened, then he could be anywhere…or nowhere. The raiders and vermin were bad enough as it was. Now there were even more unpleasant things to deal with. Justin was beginning to believe that three of four weeks in this new world might not be enough time to find another chip. Sink or swim, he thought. And he got to choose.
So be it.
“Do you think that Vault might have parts I could salvage?”
“Oh, anything’s possible,” Patrick said. “But the last I heard, they’d taken on some uninvited company, and were living in the shadow of some rather large mutants.”
Justin turned his hands up, confused. “Ghouls…mutants. What’s the difference?”
“I couldn’t say,” Patrick told him. “I don’t know what’s going on there, an I don’t care to. But I for one wouldn’t risk running across either one – ghoul or mutant. Latest word is they’ve got some sort of powerful new leader, an that doesn’t surprise me at all.” He turned back to the northeast. “Seems like the changes out here never happen for the better.”
“I thought I was our resident doomsayer,” Justin said. “You taking the title?”
“Aaah, I get down an wallow in it now and again,” Patrick said over his shoulder. “But hearing nothing but quiet out there now tends to make me feel a bit better.” He handed the PipBoy back, and then, with that same appraising eye, asked: “An what of you? How are you feelin about what you got yourself into?”
“I’m not sure,” Justin said after a moment. “Nothing is the way I imagined it. All I know is, I’m in it.”
“If you and me were to trade places, I suppose I’d feel the same as you,” Patrick said gently. “It’s quite a lot to take in, but now you know something more than what you did…and I believe you’ll have some time to make up your mind. You had enough for one day?”
Justin wasn’t surprised to find that he had. “Yes, sir.”
“Sir,” Patrick said, shaking his head. “Well then, *sir*, let’s get settled in for the night…”
Later, when the ridges were shadowy black silk and the fire was burning low, the moon seemed brighter to Justin, like a lustrous silver coin in the northern sky, as Patrick’s rich, basso voice filled the night with song. He sang acappella and had done so for hours, and now, the low strains of “Na Gheala Mbeadh” came to Justin’s tired ears. Quite the voice, he thought, yawning, as he propped himself up on one arm. And quite the source of information…enough to bring tears to his eyes when he stopped denying and started listening.
The brilliant intellect that powered the world through shining eras of triumph and achievement was the same intellect that burned it down. The thought was horribly depressing, but why lie about it? It was there – it had been in front of him all along. The land was a ravaged battleground – it *was* a nightmare, not the self-deception he had tried to escape into. Fifty miles of desolation, dehydration, and pyrotechnic dreams would be enough to convince anyone – it had him.
It had been quite a trip so far, and it was far from over. There was almost no water, but there were raider clans, running hither and yon through the rat camps and the burnt out towns and in the middle of a desert wasteland. And if you got tired of that, there was always radiation and a pack of new mutated species…and now *people*, for all of it. The scrap of balance he had envisioned, *was* scrap…
So what does that leave? He thought emptily, remembering the comfort of familiarity in the reassuring sound of voices other than his own; the crying jags and the bad dreams, in the cold nights spent alone…and the warmth of companionship within reach. When the tech fails and the fantasy fails with it, when you pick through the flotsam of what’s left, what do you decide to keep as your own?
You keep what got you here in the first place, Justin thought. You keep the edge; *both* edges of a plowshare-turned-sword…and those who forged it. You keep the *living*…then hope and pray they don’t spin out while you cling to the rest of it.
Maybe humanity was its own worst enemy, but humanity had set it all into motion in another time, and they were still out there…creating again, somewhere in the solitude of tonight. Above ground or buried in a Vault made not a tad of difference – the decades had moved on while the core remained unchanged. People built, and they tore down. They lived…and they died. They were still bad, and good…and at least the good folks were still out there.
And here, in the flow of a sweet Celtic melody, carried on an undercurrent of undying hope, by a living voice other than his own…and by that warm feel of companionship within reach. It’s been a pretty all right day, Justin thought, yawning, as he rolled onto his back and gazed overhead…
Sirius was looking down on him…watching over him, as it had countless others, for millienna. Cassiopeia was there…and Orion, mythology’s mightiest hunter, magnified and majestic…out of reach, yet seemingly close enough to touch.
Countless others, he thought, as his eyes slipped closed. And I am now amongst their number. The heavens can see me…they know my name…
Know my name.
My name.
Name –
His thoughts drifted away, and when he returned to them, the names in a new tomorrow were there.
Dark inspiration comes in many gaily wrapped packages, he thought dully, dunking his right forefinger into the cool, too-clear water of Cottonwood Creek. Drinks are on me, boys! Shine, little glow worm…Boo! His mind taunted.
He jerked his finger out of the water and wiped it off on his grungy blue duds, then he licked his cracked lips and looked up at the north end of the stream…
“Boo-blue…,” he sang in a shaky, tuneless voice, “I’m so blue…so black and blue…”
…sit down pretty boy, he thought dully. He dropped to his knees by the earthen bank, looking warily at the water, hearing it gurgle and splash – wet wet sooo wet – watching it ripple, reflecting over its stone-bottomed bed, his head pounding, his throat as chaffed and dry as the calf-deep sand he’d waded through since he cleared the ball-busting hairpin curves on Crankshaft Junction.
Too fun, he thought foggily. He licked his lips, and then snapped the top back on his PipBoy – 12:03, it read. And a happy December 8th to you, Justin, his mind chided.
He licked his lips and tried not to think about the 9th.
The Crank was cranky, he thought, staring longingly at the lazily running creek, his mind shying away from tomorrow. A too-cranky precipice – that was the Crank in spades. It nearly had busted his jewels with the longest – and worst – set of slides he had fallen down. It was a prime case of heat stroke, just waiting to happen. An authority on the state of falling rocks – that was him, in black and purple, so he felt qualified to make the call.
Welcome to the wastes, he thought, licking his lips and staring at the creek. The Big “Q”. The Big Top. Come one, come all. Like the answers? Hey, we do it all for you…hope you enjoyed your stay, rube.
Yeeha.
Funny, but for some strange reason, ol’ SR 168 had been on his mind – quite a lot, now that he thought about it – while he was dragging himself around the last shale-and-stone monolith, sopping wet, digging his fingers into the back of a banded lizard instead of a stone shelf he was shooting for. He didn’t know a lizard could be that noisy, but that one had cut loose with a hiss that made his testicles shrivel and…
…why are you thinking about your balls anyway?
“Because they’re in a tight sling,” he grunted. Snappy comebacks for a mindless drifter – that’s you on both ends, he thought, licking his lips. Great. Now he was talking to himself. Yet another sign of his continuing mental decay. Hurry Hurry! All aboard the Sightseer Express! See the sights! Just three fun-filled days to a crispier brain. ‘Round that bend, boy…then fall off the tracks. Fuck it, as Holmes was wont to say. Too fun, Justin thought foggily, lowering his head, fighting the gray swarm behind his eyes.
And losing.
So what’s new? He thought. The Crank? Mr. Lizard? Those was an hour or so ago – that was old news. Like people. Like him. Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Getcha Special Edition heeya!
“Ah doan think so,” he mumbled, lifting his head and staring at the water. “I got the early edition.” All the news that is news. He’d had plenty of time to catch it – after all, he’d been two-stepping it up and down this unpaved excuse for a road since before sunrise.
Spin the wheel, he thought gravely. Big Pine Road…Death Valley Road. My Road…Your Road…Any Road’s a Death Road. It’s all the same to our neutered AM Rambler, chasing down a chip and a dream only to be run down by a nightmare. Serendipity…what a scream.
“Literally,” Justin said, yanking his sunglasses off and squinting into the sky. The heat was searing, but there were no dreams in the daytime, and that made it better – a lot better. If he really was going off his nut, he was going to do it with as much sunshine as he could snag.
He clutched his knees and began to rock backward. Back and forth…back and forth. Sun feels good, he thought. Old Saul was turning him into a shriveled raisin, but the heat was soothing. And it felt good just to sit. He could sit here for hours and hours, baking and shriveling and…relaxing. His eyelids fluttered closed, as his burned face turned toward the sun –
Just relax. Just relax and…
Then his eyelids flew open and he was battling the swarm as he scrambled to his feet. The stars behind his eyes were a clustery gray kaleidoscope, and his breath was coming in short, painful whoops. Not overly healthy, he decided, lowering his head and waiting for it to clear…
The stream was still there when he looked up a moment later. He ran a hand though his matted hair and stared bitterly at the creek – it just sat there, gurgling at him, then he thought with self-disdain that Big Pine was still there, just sitting there like a wake up tonic for every dufus that had to be up early.
It worked for him. Too well, in fact and: “Would you rather be shot or hanged?” was now the question.
And he got to choose the answer.
“Have to, actually,” he said flatly. Because of a dream – an idealistic dream, he thought, swapped one-for-one for a goddamn nightmare that wouldn’t leave him alone. His hand plunged into the stream up to his wrist…soooo cool, he thought, feeling the chill race up his spine, as the cooling current slipped between his bleeding fingers. He wondered if a head full of spooks was a prerequisite for joining the looney clan, or just optional, then he saw the pink runnels seeping from his hand, floating above a too-clear bottom and thought it didn’t matter.
It was just him and the rats anyway. Mr. Rats. And note that plural. There were lots of em. Came in his choice of colors, too – brown, gray. Or red. Small ones, big ones – and huge ones, twice his size. And dead ones. No shortage of dead.
No, sir.
Just him and the fucking rats, he thought. The AM Shambler, one foot down…bumble…trip…and then shoot whatever tries to claw or bite. It was all quite simple, really. There was no one out here and he was an idealistic buffoon. The world was as dead as the chip: he was alone, and running from himself. He’d done a lot of it recently.
The nightmare of Big Pine hadn’t allowed him twenty minutes’ worth of rest last night. That got tiring in a hurry – no pun intended – and he’d scooted headlong out of Hanging Rock Canyon before first light at something resembling a dead run. And enough with the puns, he thought. Waking up time and again with a welling scream locked in his throat wasn’t funny any more. If it ever was.
There had been no rationale in any of it, and he knew it. But when logic hopped into the back seat, that left his own dreamscape terror as the summoner. Just a run through the park after that. Elementary, my dear Watson, Justin thought. All too simple, as in simpleton. He hadn’t been able to outrun himself with his eyes shut, and so, like a gibbering fool, he tried doing it with his bleary orbs open instead, overtaxing himself on the merry-go-round of backbreaking slides and steep grades on The Crank, with only a dribble of water and even less sleep during the whole moronic, rat-slaying process.
And now he was sitting here next to a too-clear, cold-running creek with three drained water flasks, his tongue a thick, dusty block in his mouth, basically terrified by the thought of drinking water he had no way of testing first. Can you say “radiation?” he thought. Or “no Geiger counter?” Or “no test kit?”
“Can you say ‘dehydration’?”, he said aloud and then lapsed into silence, while the word – or more the thought, the realities – behind it, lingered. The implications in it were clear, and had a galvanizing effect on him. And, the crew at home that was depending on him gave him something more to think about. He licked his lips and thought he could die out here…and knew he would, if he didn’t make up his mind.
He wriggled out of his pack, looking thoughtfully at the stream as he laid next to it, flexing the tortured muscles in his shoulders, trying to think past the misty fog in his brain. He thought it odd how the rats were what made him leary of sampling the water in the first place. The bear-sized ones, especially. They were on the road farther back, rotting in the sun – four tangled furballs that shot the warning flag up in his head after he shot them.
“Thanks again for the reminder, gang”, he croaked, thinking that radiation had played the chromosome boogie on whatever kind of rats they were. Or had been. Radiation was the queen of unfamiliar breeds, but he hadn’t honestly expected to see any of her scuttling new hatchlings grow to that size. The Natural Order was definitely Out of Order. Please refer to Science Holodisk 472 – Radiation: Cause and Effect.
And then fill in the blanks, he thought with sudden interest, his eyes taking in the stone and sand at the bottom of the stream. Radiation had remained abundant, while water had become scarce. Obviously, he told himself, thinking of tomorrow, while tightening his nerve. What splashes of water he had seen in the higher elevations were clear…and, he reasoned, would have filtered through the same rocky sediment for decades.
That should have removed most of the radiation up thar, he thought. But the nosebleed elevations west had since been halved by him and his tired dogs, and here in this sizzling, ten-mile long trough in the lower reaches, there was a lesser chance for some badly needed runoff.
The war giveth, then Mother Earth taketh away…
But how much?
He swallowed hard – his throat clicked dryly, and that did it. He slipped his glasses on and thought that sometimes, he thought too much. The risk was monstrous – like playing Russian roulette with Rems instead of a gun. The choice wasn’t the greatest, but the alternative was an iron-clad certainty.
Take a stab a living or throw in towel, he told himself. Give it up? Roll over and die? Not him. It might happen tomorrow, but not today. Sand dunes, cave ins, rats and all, he wanted to live.
“Even if it means tramping through the dead”, he muttered, crouching now, his skin tingling, alive with its own anxious current, as his cupped hands dropped into the water…
“Well, I’ll be,” came a stout voice from behind. “Look what the wind’s blown over my way, sun-baked an all.”
Justin lurched forward at the sound, his thighs screaming in protest. Cramps!…Oh cramps! he thought, hissing between his teeth as angry dragon flames devoured his legs. His hands flew out instinctively, then a cold spray splashed his face – he came to a jarring stop, half-in and half-out of the stream, his head hanging down, draped an inch over the water, like a drunken hunchback between his loudly protesting shoulders. He looked at his splayed fingers – they were still there, he calmly noted, refusing to acknowledge what was obviously his own impending delirium. All eight, plus two thumbs, he thought, with a sigh of relief. All digits, present and accounted for.
Better still, there were no voices now. He thought that was pretty damn all right, too. He tilted his head lower – his feet were anchored firmly on the dirt. His thighs were quivering like bowstrings, and he was up to his elbows in untested water. Straddled between shore and sea with my tush up for high tide, he thought, looking between his legs…
…and seeing an upside-down shadow, standing at the edge of the road.
A man’s shadow, he thought absently.
“Do you need a hand, lad?” the shadow asked, not unkindly.
Justin shook his head without realizing he had. With some effort, he calmly shoved himself backward, wincing as his butt landed on shore. He thought it strange that a shadow could speak at all, let alone with a faint Irish accent, then he looked behind him…
The Irish shadow-man was still there.
He turned back, and made himself count to ten. Then he looked behind him again…
Now the shadow-man was waving at him. Finally believing what he was seeing, Justin sat there, letting it sink in. A human, he thought, slightly bewildered. And again…a human…a human being…
It was all he could think of. A live human, his mind chattered. Homo Sapiens…a person…a people, the find of a lifetime…his lifetime. And in that instant, the constant worrying and nagging doubts, his ravenous thirst, the fears, every twitching ache and pain was instantly – and mercifully – abated. A pre-Merry Christmas gift, Justin thought. Ho-Ho-Ho. He could feel all of his nasty miseries being carried off, swept away by his sight of an honest-to-goodness human being, one that was walking and smiling and breathing and pushing a wooden cart…
…and wearing what looked like a pre-war suit of Motorcycle Football armor. Then Justin saw the rows of brightly polished brass studs running along its cracked leather seams. He knew the frills were non-standard…and could feel something inside him crumble.
He thought it might have been Hope, as the warning flag in his head rose to half-mast.
“A good day to you, traveler,” the bearded man said, his voice carrying well on the clear afternoon air.
“And the same to you, sir,” Justin said equably, now unsure of how much to say. He found his feet and started toward the road, the numbness from the brisk water and his inaugural surprise quickly wearing off.
“Sir?” the man said, smiling. “Well, thank you. Didn’t mean take you by surprise an all, but I was a bit surprised myself, findin you here like this.” He cast a curious glance at the creek. “That water any good for drinkin?”
Justin stopped, and then held his hands out, palms up. “Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t have any test equipment…I was about to find out the hard way.”
“I think I can do a might better than guess,” the man said with a note of seriousness. “Dry yourself off, and I’ll be back before you have.”
Justin watched the thickset man return to his spoke-wheeled cart, and begin rumaging through the back of it. He grabbed a towel from his pack, and then found himself staring weightily at the Colt inside it.
“For the bad guys”, he said quietly, drying his hands with care. The man seemed friendly and sociable enough: he wasn’t the problem – his leather escort was. Justin remembered it from a session in the Vault library.
Motorcycle Football had been a highly popular collision sport, a regular arenafest way back when. The ball was round and the crowds were huge, and leather rigging they used for it was just that – rigging. It was basic construction; layers of cowhide, stitched together, then jammed over your head and laced down along the sides, like padding. The suits had been no-frills, mass-production carcasses, stripped down for the track, with no extra baubles. They’d been designed to handle impact – they were a defense, and the leather he was seeing was being worn as casually as a t-shirt – meaning someone had an ongoing offense somewhere.
He knew he should be turning cartwheels, backflips and walking on his hands: he should have been delirious and overjoyed, but he wasn’t. The fact of it was, the armor bothered him, and not because he wasn’t wearing it – because of what it stood for; what it symbolized. MoBall was a thing of the distant past, but its culture sure as hell had been combat-oriented. And what, Justin asked himself with a hint of annoyance, are the chances of the first live person you meet being all decked out in fighting gear?
He thought of the stacks of arsenals he had envisioned, waiting to be picked up, and found himself not wanting to examine the answer too closely. He’d thought the big toys were still out here – but now he knew there were still-busy hands to use them. It was as if the answers to every question he’d ever thought of were being dumped on him all at once. Open wide, then let it fall. And fall. The mysterious allure of the consummate question mark was fast losing its luster.
Just seeing another breathing body had breathed life into him only to have it sucked out during his next breath. The curse of the terminal dreamer, he thought. Cindy had dropped that tag him that more times than he could count, and hers wasn’t the only estimate. Ken and David and Theresa had all the same thing, while he had dared recreate the fragments of a new world in his mind. If that made him a dreamer, then maybe he was – if so, they could vilify him later. The acreage he was plodding through now was nothing like what he had “dreamed”, but he was still starchy enough to realize he had asked for what he got. Now he had it…
And every clarification bred new questions.
Old Murph wasn’t around, and he thought he had walk on his own sometime. Just knowing that people were still on the prowl was reassuring, but people were hopelessly social creatures – if you found one, there was sure to more traipsing around somewhere. Humanity inevitably sought out its own, just as he had – and now it was that same innate ability to unite and then create that seemed like a double-edged sword to him, a mixed blessing at best. It was possible that some sort of resurrected society was busily at work out here, but at what? Were they trying to put it back together? Or finding new ways to tear it down?
He didn’t know, but he could feel Hope rearing its head, lunging and bucking at the starting gate. Then he looked down at his beaten hands, and could still see the dead faces in the nothingness he had crossed.
He thought it didn’t mesh well.
In a one-time nation where dreams were now stillborn, he decided that he would cling to no more of its illusions. The world had been out of control before…and somewhere between the rows of brightly polished studs on an old chunk of cowhide, he thought that eighty-five years later, not much had changed.
Realizing it – and learning to accept it – turned his stomach, but from today forward, he would assume that combat gear was being worn today for the same reasons as yesterday. And that alone make him want a slab of leather to call his own…with or without the studs.
And a Geiger counter, Justin thought now, adding to his mental wish list. Just like the one the man was carrying down the slope.
“A man’s got to have an awful thirst to be dippin into this without knowing what’s in it first,” the man said, kneeling by the bank.
“I can’t argue with that,” Justin said, as the man swept the counter over the water twice. “I didn’t want to, but without any equipment, I had no choice. I’m glad you showed up when you did.”
“Well, looks as though you’re luck’s in twice today,” the man said, turning the counter toward Justin.
“Three”, Justin smirked, reading the display’s single blue digit aloud. Three was a fantastic number – a healthy number – a number he could live with. And through. He thought that Wattz Electronics was the all-time greatest ex-company in the ex-world, and then, fighting a strong urge to dive into the water, he hauled his flasks out, and began filling them, relieved to know that his eyelids would stay put for now.
The man laid the counter down next to a barrel-sized jug and three aluminum canteens. Then he picked the jug up, and began filling it. “I don’t see too many folks wanderin west of the settlements these days,” he said casually. “Much less any that call me ‘sir’. What brings you out this far?”
“I’m just…making my way east,” Justin acknowledged. He tipped a full flask up and drank slowly, his pores opening in gratitude, while another flask filled. He wiped his mouth, liking the clean, mineral taste of it – it was fresh, when you got right down to it. Much better than Vault water. He hoped he could keep himself from guzzling too much of it at once. He didn’t need any water cramps right now. Or later.
“I see,” the man said, smiling, as he looked the filthy stranger up and down with an appraising eye. “So you’re a roustabout. Much like myself, then. I take it you’re not from nearby?”
“That’s close enough for today,” Justin admitted, grimacing at the irony, as he stowed his last flask. He climbed slowly to his feet and reshouldered his pack, the word “settlements” ringing ominiously in his ears. Homesteads…where? And good, or not so good? He didn’t know – again – and with only the barest hint of a clue to work with, he was becoming uncomfortably aware of there being a lot more out here than miles of desolation.
The man tightened the cap on his last canteen, then, favoring Justin with a skeptical look, he got up and draped the canvas strap across his neck, letting the canteen fall behind his shoulders. He snatched the heavy five-gallon jug up by its handle, managing the extra weight with ease as they walked up the low slope to the road in silence.
Justin was stealing glances at the man, as they crested the slope, looking at his ruddy features and deep desert tan, his leather mocs and patched cotton clothes. Now he looked at the man’s cart, then it occurred to him how completely out of place he must look. Like a grain of pepper in a salt shaker, he thought, rubbing a hand across one of his dirty sleeves. Who was he kidding? His own clothing had given him away, then he asked himself how many people he knew who accepted differences that drastic in others with a smile?
One person came immediately to mind.
D.C., Justin thought, and then felt a little foolish for not seeing past the pieces of leather. The man was no threat; he had been decent and kind – and Justin realized he didn’t even know his name. He was tolerant as well, the kind of man Justin decided he would trust on short notice.
Like there was a choice? He thought, looking at the tools and wire, and other knickknacks in the man’s frame cart. There was clay pottery, bowls and dishes in there…a green and white ice chest…an office chair, he saw…and a couple of musty wooden crates, filled with unknown treasures for good measure. Today was in there – there was more parked inside that homespun cart he didn’t know about than he’d picked up while his can was parked in the Vault. It was as if he were starting school again, and the similarity ended there. In school, no one took your life away while you were cramming for new curriculums – or if you coughed up a wrong answer when test time rolled around. He didn’t care for the thought, or the feeling of defenselessness that came with it…then he saw himself as a toddling child, and thought it was part of the learning.
That was enough.
“Listen,” Justin began, “I’m sorry if I seem a little standoffish, but this is new territory for me...and it’s been a long trip. I’m not from anywhere around here. I’m from farther west.”
“Forgive me for saying so,” the man replied, cinching a swatch of burlap over the cart, “but I’d already gathered that.” He pointed a stubby finger at Justin’s grubby clothes, then added: “Can’t say as I know how far west you’re from, but you look to be in a fine rush to be elsewhere.” He paused for a second, then stuck his right hand out. “The name’s Patrick Blandon. An who might you be?”
“Justin Marshall,” Justin said, shaking the Irishman’s hand, uncertain of where to begin classes – or if they even would. Finally, he nodded at the cart and said: “That’s…quite a junk collection you have there.”
Patrick smiled indulgently. “It’s hardly what I’d call junk, lad. It’s trade goods. I wander from place to place, making my living with music an a bit of tinkering work, here an there.” And now his smile flattened into a sly grin. “I thought surely you’d know that. Are there no craftsman where you come from?”
“There are,” Justin said, smiling at the man’s shrewd, perceptive demeanor. “Quite a few, in fact.” His own inquisitive eyes were drawn to Patrick’s clear, intelligent ones. Patrick looked at him appraisingly, but that knowingly wry smile remained. Finally, Justin exhaled slowly and said: “Patrick, I don’t know familiar you are with this, but the ‘west’ I said I’m from, is a Vault.”
“Really now?” Patrick exclaimed, sounding genuinely surprised. “You don’t say. I’ve heard tales about the great Vaults but that was quite some time ago, mind you. Truth to tell, I didn’t believe anyone still lived in them, but…well…” He stroked his beard for a moment, as if deciding this for himself, then he seemed to shift mental gears. “Well, I’d have to say them Vaults must still be goin, ‘cause here you are, all decked out in blue an yellow. From all I’d heard about them big burrows, this must be quite a change for you.”
“It is,” Justin agreed, making a mental note to find some different clothes. “And if you’re going west, I can honestly say it’ll be a fifty mile waste of your time. You’re the first living soul I’ve seen since I left.”
“Don’t I know that feeling,” Patrick said truthfully. “There’s folks out here, but they aren’t all that easy to find. Not be nosin into your affairs, but with you living under the earth an all, why would you be out here now? Did that Vault of yours open?
“No, it’s still closed,” Justin said, then something occurred to him. “You said you’re a tinker?”
“That I am.”
“Then you must be pretty good with hardware. Working with your hands, that sort of thing.”
Patrick shrugged. “I get by, an that’s enough for me.”
“What kind of work do you do?” Justin asked, scratching the thickening brown coat on his cheeks. He was going to be as bearded as Patrick before long. Then he thought that a little trust in this man might benefit them all.
“Oh, electrical and mechanical, mostly,” Patrick said with a touch of pride. “In fact, I helped Junktown out with their generator and lighting not long ago. The folks there don’t know much about that sort of thing, but a bit of cleaning and a touch of rewiring was all it took. Fixed em up good and proper. Their lights were shining fine when I set out for Shady Sands sometime last week. Left there a couple of days ago, right after I showed em a better design for their stoves.”
Junktown…Shady Sands…Stoves…and Electricity, Justin thought. Towns, and power. Crank up those lights, boys: the answers were coming fast. There was a lot out here, and not all of it was on the downside – Doubt was losing its stuff, and Hope was starting to charge up the backstretch.
“Are you doing anything now?” Justin asked. “I mean, are you very busy?” He hoped not. What he had in mind was a longshot, but he thought it might pay off.
“Can’t say that I am at this second,” Patrick said jokingly. “I was headin to where you’re coming from, but think I my mind’s been changed for me. Why?”
“My Vault has what’s called a water chip,” Justin explained. “It’s a computer circuit – more or less the brains that controls a water purifying system. The chip is the our only means of assuring that we have clean water, and it decided to stop working. We don’t have the parts to repair it, and now the Vault is running out of water. I’m supposed to be looking for a replacement chip at another Vault to the east, and that’s why I’m out here. But, I was thinking…maybe you could repair ours?”
“Sounds like you’ve a bad way to go,” Patrick said, frowning. “Believe me, Justin, I’d like to help you, but I don’t think I’d be very much. I haven’t seen one of those chips before. Never had much of a chance to study any pre-war technology.” He shrugged. “Not that there’s many out here who have, mind you. I might be able to lend another sort of hand, if you’re willing.”
“Such as?” Justin asked, stooping to pick a blade of dry grass.
“Well, with you being fresh to the wastes and all, do you know how to get to where you’re going?”
Justin didn’t offer a word in reply – he simply opened the top on his PipBoy. Patrick blinked in wonder as the screen unfolded…then he smiled in delight.
“I have a fairly good idea of where I’m going,” Justin said, pointing out Vault 15’s location. “But all of the maps I’m using are pretty old, and it sounds like a lot has changed while I was away.”
“That it has,” Patrick said ponderously, studying the map display. “Quite a little gadget you have there. Trouble is, these things are like all the other old tech – useless without people around to keep it up to date. I don’t know if this’ll help you or not, but I can see you’re a ways from where you need to be. If you can add other things to that map an have the time for it, I can show you the whereabouts of some of the larger settlements.”
“For that,” Justin said with a hint of excitement, “I can make all the time you need. And thank you.”
“My pleasure, young man,” Patrick said. “That’s the least I can do for a new arrival. Come on, let’s get ourselves turned around, then I’ll fill you in on our way east.”
Patrick grabbed the slim, polelike handles on the cart, and hoisted the business end of it…then promptly set it down when Justin offered the PipBoy to him.
“You seem to be very fond of old tech,” Justin said, “and I really appreciate your help. I’ve got about a thousand questions with no answers, and believe me, I could use some.” He held the PipBoy out. “Logging data on this thing is just knowing what buttons to push. I’d be happy to show you how, and…I can push the cart while you mark the map. I thought it would give us a chance to talk…and you a chance to mess around with some pre-war tech for a while.”
“I believe I’d like that.” Patrick said simply. Then he took the PipBoy, his eyes keen with interest as he began pouring over map labels by a column of red buttons along the display. A pile of antique circuits, Justin thought, smiling, as he looked on. Just a husk from another, extinct time…and a meaningful piece in the chaff of what remained, he could see…in his pile of antique circuits, held gently in two callused hands with something akin to reverence.
Happy Holidays, he thought, shaking the dust from his hair, as he walked to the cart. A chuckwalla disappeared into a patch of bracken off the road ahead, as he lifted the cart up and down, hefting it, testing the weight. It wasn’t bad. The load was level, and the weight was evenly distributed – balanced. He was a manual laborer now. That was new, but the sand drifts weren’t. He thought that a little balance wouldn’t hurt.
He turned the cart around and wheeled it over to Patrick, who was looking off to the west. He was very quiet, and there was a distant, far away cast in his eyes.
“Is something wrong?”
“No no,” Patrick chuckled. “Things are right as they can be. It’s just that I’ve always used the coastline as a reference, an this is the first time I’ve ever seen the shore laid out all at once. Always wondered what it looked like in the altogether. Never thought I’d live to see it, but…” He scratched his head and then nodded to himself. “Well, no matter. Now I have. Are you ready?”
“Yes, sir,” Justin said.
“Don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” Patrick admitted, as he began to mark the map, pointing out the living in the reclaimed towns and villages, explaining the new world to Justin, as they moved southeast.
“What you have is Shady Sands…here,” Patrick went on, the flatlands growing distant, while they paralleled Slate Ridge. “About a week inland on Indar Trail, a ways off Nevada 267. It’s just around the corner from us, and about half way to that other Vault of yours, I’d say. Shady Sands is a small farming community, led by Sundara Aradesh, a kind and decent man…and strong leader, I’ll add. That certainly doesn’t hurt. If you’ve occasion to stop there, I believe you’ll find they’re a peaceful, hard-working people. Probably our best chance for a new civilization.”
Justin nodded at Patrick’s armor. “You said that you did some work for them. Do they have a…trading post, or something like that?” He didn’t know what else to call it.
“They don’t have anything like that, but Junktown’s a few days south of there, east off…California 14, it is. That’s about fifteen, maybe twenty miles south of the fork off Three Parks Road – ”
“Where?” Justin asked, balancing the cart, and leaning to his right.
“Right here.” Patrick said, pointing to a red ribbon in the center of the display.
US 395, Justin thought uneasily, feeling a needlelike rush of protectiveness sweep over him as he looked at the bending line. The northern run of it was, oh…about three miles west of Vault 13. Wonderful.
“I take it the road was renamed because of the parks?”
“That is was,” Patrick confirmed. “I see you know your history. It supposedly picked up its name from a peddler from after the war with an eye on the same. Nobody knows his name any more, but the title stuck. Now, Three Parks is probably the best-known, and most heavily traveled road out here.” He glanced at Justin. “You look a bit pale. The heat getting to you?”
“No, I’m all right,” Justin said half-heartedly. “I was just thinking about something. Please, go on.”
“As you like,” Patrick said doubtfully. “Now as I was saying, Junktown’s a small trading city. You can find decent goods an gear there, but other than that, it’s not too remarkable. It’s run by a man named Killian Darkwater, the sheriff, mayor, and local shopkeeper. Does a little bit of everything. Killian’s a hard, but fair man…and always seems to be buttin heads with a group of gangers there…or with Don Gizmo, a gambling mogul and crimelord.” Patrick shook his head. “It’s just different, a strange place until you get used to it…”
Gold Mountain stood silent on the morning side of Last Chance Range, as the men plunged deeper into the southeast. The sun rode their backs above a cloudless sky as they walked and sweltered through the hottest part of the day, while Patrick spoke at length of the rat infested tent towns and encampments which had risen south and west near the fallen cities of Cartago and Lone Pine, Little Lake and Ridgecrest. The names went on as they did, and to Justin, seemed endless, a disheartening roll call of the diseased and impoverished; guttering pockets of life, barely existing in a land that was once called “Free”.
California City…Randburg. Gold Point…Keeler…Mojave…Rosamond. Fresno…Panoche…Palmdale…China Lake. The blighted, drought-stricken towns rolled off Patrick’s tongue, one after another while the deep sand on Big Pine Rd. lessened to shifting tendrils. There was finality in his words, and the doom sense began to creep over Justin, growing and spreading, then tightening its icy grip, as he trundled the cart down miles of barren road. What he had envisioned and held to for years could not be seen after he left…and then it suddenly appeared. The towns and people were there…but they weren’t. There were people and cities…if either could be called that. The means for a rebirth was there…and it wasn’t. Electricity was there to power the growth…and there was hardly anyone left to use it.
It was the great there, not there, like an ad-lib midway show on some low-rent carnival act. He felt as if he had stumbled into a house of mirrors where every image was distorted and nothing was what it appeared to be. His spirits were lower than the sun when they crossed a two-lane bridge southwest of Scotty’s Castle, and with the day nearly spent, they stopped to rest, while the dreary litany continued…
“…and then, if you stay on southbound 14, you’ll cross 58, right here,” Patrick said, tapping his fingertip on the map. “That’ll turn into 138. There’s a branch road that veers off to your left, about ten miles after that. Might have been a business route or something of the like in the other time. Today, it’ll take you to the ruins near Lancaster. There’s a turnoff north of there runnin to the east along with a few signs to mark it for you. Follow it and you’ll find the Hub.”
“The Hub,” Justin parroted around a mouthful of concentrates. He washed the bland paste down with a swig of water, then asked: “Where did they come up with a name like that?”
“Well, I suppose it’s because the Hub’s the major tradin center around here,” Patrick said, reaching for a canvas zippertop bag at his feet. “It’s a couple days south of Junktown, all told, an the biggest city I know of. It’s said you can find anything there, and I’d say that’s not too far wrong, if at all.”
Justin tossed the rest of the concentrate tube into his pack. He didn’t feel like eating. “More gloom and dispair in the south?”
“It’s not all gloom and dispair there,” Patrick confided, producing a hard slab of meat and a short-bladed knife from the bag. “There is an…element…I’ll call it, that’s anything but good,” he went on, slicing the meat into thin strips. “But the Hub’s a big place, with a lot of decent folks in it…must be a thousand people there. Maybe more.”
“A *thousand* people?” Justin burst out, and then abruptly fell silent. He stared blankly at his chewed up hands, not wanting to hear any more. Growth in crime lords and gambling moguls? A renewal in gangs and armor and rats and dry watersheds and only God knew what else? And now there was an “element”.
Elements? he thought bitterly. Torn tent flaps flopping over an acre of sewer hole while the families inside ate rat for dinner – those were elements.
So were tritium and uranium.
It was a farce, a fucked up trick; another chain reaction slight of hand. He wondered if the shock would ever subside, then he thought that the real illusion was him thinking he had no more. His mouth quivered at the thought, and then his face began to work, the skin below his cheeks drawing up, stretched tightly across his jaw, as if he were forcing himself to swallow some inert thing, large and choking…
Like a doorknob that wouldn’t go down.
He looked up and, very softly, said: “There’s six or seven times that many people west of here, Patrick. They’re easy to find because they’re all in one place. Convieniently located. Just look anywhere in Big Pine…everywhere…they’re stacked up like cordwood.” His flicked a hand to the south, and then his voice rose to a fervid, desperate pitch. “A thousand people in the Hub? Jesus, that’s *it*? My Vault has more people in it than that! There’s *fourteen hundred* there, safe and sound and that’s the difference…they’re a-alive…”
And then the words died, as Justin stood there with it lodged in his throat, mouth working soundlessly, his arms open wide, embracing the emptiness in the gathering twilight, his dirty young face a besieged and shattered mask, as he gasped: “What happened out here? What *happened*? Where *is* it? It’s been *eighty-five* years, Patrick. Eighty-five years, and it’s all just gangs and rat camps and infections? Where’s the progress? Where’s the people? Wh-Wh-Where’s the…”
He hitched in a rasping breath and turned his head.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Patrick said after a while. “Except that, sometimes, dreams die hard…and this is what’s left of the one’s that died a long time ago.” Then he pushed himself up, and thought as he walked to his cart, that even young men who were all grown up wouldn’t care much for getting caught with their eyes wet.
“No, that wouldn’t do at all,” Patrick said under his breath, as he raised the flap, and pulled a rolled up wicker mat and a wood crate from the back. Humming quietly to himself, he untied a loop of twine around the mat as he walked back, then he stopped and unrolled it at Justin’s feet.
“What’s this for?” Justin asked hoarsely, as the crate was placed in front of him.
“A bit of a cure for what ails you,” Patrick said, patting Justin’s shoulder. “If you don’t mind, that is.”
Justin wiped his nose, and smiled wanly. “I guess not. I’m sure it beats self-pity.”
“By a fair margin,” Patrick said, picking up the zippered bag. “But there’s really no need to be hard on yourself. This damnable land’ll do that for you.”
“Yeah,” Justin sighed, looking at the crate. He felt as hollow inside as it was. Christ, he’d bawled like a newborn. Welcome to the changes, he thought miserably. Open wide, then let it fall…and fall.
“Oh, it’s a damnable land,” he said shakily. “So I see…I just never thought it…it’s just…it’s…”
“A lot for anyone accept all at once,” Patrick finished with a slow wink. “Especially for someone from out of town, so to speak.” Then he wiped the crate off, and set two green balls on it. “Go ahead; cheer yourself up with one of those. I plan to.”
Justin wasn’t sure if the tears were done, as he picked up a ball…and saw that it wasn’t a ball at all. He sniffled, then he ran a hand through his hair and thought it could be a fruit of some kind. Exactly what kind, he was at a loss to say. He turned it over in his hands…over…and again…and thought that home had *never* produced anything like it. The thing had to be a product of the war – it was green mostly, and about the size of a golden delicious apple – but it had mutated from something or other. He pushed his thumbnail into it – the skin was thick, with brownish tints and wartlike bumps below a twiggy “V” stem. He tossed into the air and caught it – it was surprisingly heavy for its size. He didn’t know whether to eat it or throw it at a rat. If Patrick was trying take his mind off his worries, he’d succeeded.
“What is this thing?” Justin asked with frank wonder.
“Got your curiousity up, does it?”
“Plenty.”
“Good,” Patrick said heartily. “It was supposed to. What you got there is an Orava, and before you ask, no; I don’t what the devil it is. It might be a fruit, or not. All I know is, they’re good. You bring a knife?”
“I sure did,” Justin said. “There’s one in my pack.” He slipped out of his diminishing bundle and began pawing through it. My pack, it came to him. It sounded possessive. Hey, you! Get away from *my* pack!
And when exactly had the pack suddenly become “his”? The straps on it had cut ribbons into his shoulders during his first day. He could barely tolerate his loyal nylar pal then…and he had gotten used to it, had learned to rely on it. And what about the PipBoy, that pile of obsolete circuits that Patrick had fallen in love with? It really was a nothing little box – it paled in comparision to the mainframes in Central Core. It was a pile of second-class circuits…that he now counted on. It was “his”, as well. It wasn’t “the” pack or “a” Pip Boy anymore. Both had become invaluable, and in a very short time.
Justin thought they really were “his”, and felt better for it, more in sync. He shot an appreciative glance at Patrick, and was grateful for the timely distraction, summoned by this latter day son of Dublin.
If a blarney stone had been handy, Justin would have kissed it.
“Okay,” he said, holding the knife out with both hands in a swordlike fashion. “Now what?”
Patrick only smiled at the resilience of youth, as he picked up the other Orava. “Now, the skin on these things is tougher than old Brahmin hide,” he said, “but gettin inside is worth the effort. There’s a weak spot at the top by the stem, and if you work the tip of your knife into the skin an then give the blade a quick snap forward, the blessed thing’ll split clean down the side. Works every time. Go on now an give it a try.”
Justin went at it with renewed enthusiasm, the tip of his tongue sticking out as he worked the knife into the Orava. His mouth began to water, as he shoved the knife in deeper…pushing it in, until he could see the juice pooling around the blade. Then he twisted the knife hard and snapped it toward him…
The Orava’s skin split open, as if he had pulled an invisible zipper. Juice ran freely down both sides of the ruptured skin and onto his hands…and the scent was incredible. Delicious, he thought, hurriedly slicing the fruit into quarters.
He stuck one of the wedges into his mouth…and then puckered, as a starburst of citrus seemed to blossom on his tongue. He was drooling…and didn’t mind at all.
“Well?” Patrick asked with a wide grin.
“Uh-frrmmm,” Justin started and then gave up. He jammed another wedge into his mouth, savoring the fruit’s strong, heady aroma. It tasted every bit as good as it smelled…but was so different from anything he had ever had before. It was sweet like an orange…or a mango, maybe…but it was tart, like a lime…
And still, it didn’t taste like any of those. He thought it was good though. There had to be more juice in one of these things than the watermelons he had read about. And juice was good, about now. They had covered a lot of miles, and he was still in dire need of fluids.
“You feelin a bit better?” Patrick inquired.
Justin wiped his mouth and nodded. “Yes…and I don’t know how to thank you.”
“None needed,” Patrick said. He was holding the PipBoy up, but looking off to the northeast. “I’ve had a fine day…but that could change before long.”
Justin turned, and now he was looking in the same direction. “What do you mean?”
Patrick had started back to his cart. “The wind’s blowin the sound away, but if you listen carefully, you might catch it.”
Now what? Justin thought, arching backward as he stood, watching and listening, as twilight deepened. The wind held, low and steady, coaxing sand into drifts at his feet, while Patrick returned with a gun tucked into his belt. Justin glanced at the gun uneasily, as the wind shifted into his face, and then back…and in that second, he heard it…a chittering sound, faint and far off. Even from this distance, it sounded large. And unhealthy. The hair on the back of his neck felt prickly.
“Think you can tolerate more ‘gloom and doom’ now?” Patrick asked, checking the loads in his gun.
“I think that’s already been decided,” Justin said and then stepped back, listening, as he wiped the juice off the knife blade. He tossed it into his his pack and grabbed the Colt. “What was that?” he asked.
“What you heard was a Radscorpion,” Patrick said, reseating himeslf.
Justin shuffled his feet. “Shouldn’t we be standing guard or something?”
Patrick shook his head. “Not now. They’re probably four or five miles away. If they move closer, we’ll know it. If there’s more than one, you’ll hear a loud, steady clacking when they get close. That’s from their claws. That’s how they signal each other while they’re huntin.”
“These…Radscorpions are mutations, right?” Justin asked, brushing some dirt off the gun’s slide.
“What they are is nasty,” Patrick said. “They’re some sort of regular scorpion that started growing after the war, and didn’t stop. They look like a normal ‘scorp, except now the biggest ones are thirteen, maybe as much fourteen feet long, not counting their tail, of course. They’re quick an about as mean as hell. Between their claws and stinger, they’re a load.”
“The Natural Order,” Justin said softly.
“Pardon?”
Justin shrugged. “Nothing…I’m just being numb.” Fourteen feet, he thought, ejecting the clip from the Colt. Bear-sized rats and bedroom-sized arachnids. Culture shock was alive and well, and it was just beginning. A toddling child? That was a little on the high side of optimism. He reloaded the clip and thought that crawling in diapers was more like it. He felt as if he were in fourteen feet over his head, and the shore was a long way off. He pursed his lips, then he blew out a long breath, and thought he’d better learn how to swim.
And quick.
“Okay…give me the rest of it. Good, bad…all of it.”
“The rest of it,” Patrick mused, reaching into his pants pocket. “That might come in useful.” He pulled out a rusty bottle cap, and flipped it to Justin. “Let’s start with something a bit brighter.”
“Nuka-Cola,” Justin said, reading the cap’s faded blue printing aloud. “All right, what’s this for?”
Patrick nodded at Justin’s gun. “I’d heard there used to paper bills an such, but now that cap’s a part of the economy. You’re going to need better equipment, an that means you need to know how to go about getting it.”
“With a tin bottle cap?” Justin asked, grinning.
“That’s part of it,” Patrick chuckled. “Most folks barter for what they need, an you’ll start running into merchants and traders when you get farther east. They make their livin by traveling a circuit to the different town and settlements, but most all of them get their stock from the Hub. Now, the caps’re backed by all the mechant houses there, and they’ll cover any difference in the value of the hard goods you trade. Everybody out here accepts em; they all treat those caps like money, and they are, I suppose.”
A barter system? Justin thought. How about that, folks? Vault-Tec had finally nailed one. According to the Survival Guide, in a post-nuclear world, currency would be another thing of the past, replaced by barter as the primary means of exchange. Chapter 4, Page 31 –
Stick it, Theresa.
He wondered if she would be faring any better at this moment. He doubted it.
“All right, Patrick. What’s next?”
“That would be raiders,” Patrick said flatly. “There’s other desert vermin to deal with, but the clans are the worst of the two-legged lot. And the desert’s where you’ll find most of em, living on the outskirts of the encampments, an stealing from folks that don’t have much to begin with. They don’t give me much trouble, I’m happy to say, but they’re a pain in everyone’s behind.” He thought for a moment, then he picked up the PipBoy and said: “I’m going to mark one more place for you, but this one comes with a serious word to the wise. It’s right here, out on 58, east of what’s left of Barstow. It’s called Necropolis, and I’m only putting it here because going there’s not worth your trouble.”
“Hey, what’s one more bad spot,” Justin said. “A lot of problems there?”
“Problems, you say,” Patrick said evenly. “Might be a bit of an understatement, but that’s a fair way of puttin it. You see, Justin, Necropolis is inhabited by ghouls, an – ”
“*Ghouls*?” Justin cut in. “The stuff of holomo…you’ve got to be kidding.” The unreal sense was trying to wash over him again. This time, he shoved it back.
“Not in the least,” Patrick said. “I’ve seen the place for myself…once, quite a while ago, and I suppose that’s why some call it the City of the Dead.” He shook his head in a slow, uneasy manner, as if recalling it. “I can tell you that much of the name is right and true. A sad state of affairs is what it is, one that’s been going on for a very long time. Them ghouls are supposed to be descendants of humans who sought shelter in a Vault there; like yours, or so the story goes. The Vault failed somehow or other, and now the only residents are those carrion-eating monsters.”
Justin was looking at the map display with sudden intensity. “Do you know what happened there?”
“I don’t have any idea,” Patrick said. “Why it all happened the way it did, I couldn’t say. But I’d surely stay away from there, if I were you.”
“That might not be possible,” Justin said, looking up from the newly marked spot on the map, the same spot that Josh had set out for what seemed like an eon ago. Vault 12, Justin thought. Ghouls? Carrion-eating monsters? How far did this insanity go on? And did it end?
The thought was unsettling, but now he had to add a ruptured Vault to his list of circus attractions. And if Vault 12 had failed, then what about Vault 15? Had it opened? The land was harsh and unforgiving, but it was inhabitable. If Vault 15 hadn’t failed, then it should’ve opened by now.
And what about 15? And *13*? He thought, recalling the lay of the land. What of those two highly isolated locales? What about old weapons stations and military playgrounds, and no all-clear signal for decades?
And *what* about…
…I didn’t believe anyone still lived in them…
…what Patrick had said?
And then there was Josh, and the unmerciful south he had disappeared into. It was possible that he was still alive. If the Vaults really had opened, then he could be anywhere…or nowhere. The raiders and vermin were bad enough as it was. Now there were even more unpleasant things to deal with. Justin was beginning to believe that three of four weeks in this new world might not be enough time to find another chip. Sink or swim, he thought. And he got to choose.
So be it.
“Do you think that Vault might have parts I could salvage?”
“Oh, anything’s possible,” Patrick said. “But the last I heard, they’d taken on some uninvited company, and were living in the shadow of some rather large mutants.”
Justin turned his hands up, confused. “Ghouls…mutants. What’s the difference?”
“I couldn’t say,” Patrick told him. “I don’t know what’s going on there, an I don’t care to. But I for one wouldn’t risk running across either one – ghoul or mutant. Latest word is they’ve got some sort of powerful new leader, an that doesn’t surprise me at all.” He turned back to the northeast. “Seems like the changes out here never happen for the better.”
“I thought I was our resident doomsayer,” Justin said. “You taking the title?”
“Aaah, I get down an wallow in it now and again,” Patrick said over his shoulder. “But hearing nothing but quiet out there now tends to make me feel a bit better.” He handed the PipBoy back, and then, with that same appraising eye, asked: “An what of you? How are you feelin about what you got yourself into?”
“I’m not sure,” Justin said after a moment. “Nothing is the way I imagined it. All I know is, I’m in it.”
“If you and me were to trade places, I suppose I’d feel the same as you,” Patrick said gently. “It’s quite a lot to take in, but now you know something more than what you did…and I believe you’ll have some time to make up your mind. You had enough for one day?”
Justin wasn’t surprised to find that he had. “Yes, sir.”
“Sir,” Patrick said, shaking his head. “Well then, *sir*, let’s get settled in for the night…”
Later, when the ridges were shadowy black silk and the fire was burning low, the moon seemed brighter to Justin, like a lustrous silver coin in the northern sky, as Patrick’s rich, basso voice filled the night with song. He sang acappella and had done so for hours, and now, the low strains of “Na Gheala Mbeadh” came to Justin’s tired ears. Quite the voice, he thought, yawning, as he propped himself up on one arm. And quite the source of information…enough to bring tears to his eyes when he stopped denying and started listening.
The brilliant intellect that powered the world through shining eras of triumph and achievement was the same intellect that burned it down. The thought was horribly depressing, but why lie about it? It was there – it had been in front of him all along. The land was a ravaged battleground – it *was* a nightmare, not the self-deception he had tried to escape into. Fifty miles of desolation, dehydration, and pyrotechnic dreams would be enough to convince anyone – it had him.
It had been quite a trip so far, and it was far from over. There was almost no water, but there were raider clans, running hither and yon through the rat camps and the burnt out towns and in the middle of a desert wasteland. And if you got tired of that, there was always radiation and a pack of new mutated species…and now *people*, for all of it. The scrap of balance he had envisioned, *was* scrap…
So what does that leave? He thought emptily, remembering the comfort of familiarity in the reassuring sound of voices other than his own; the crying jags and the bad dreams, in the cold nights spent alone…and the warmth of companionship within reach. When the tech fails and the fantasy fails with it, when you pick through the flotsam of what’s left, what do you decide to keep as your own?
You keep what got you here in the first place, Justin thought. You keep the edge; *both* edges of a plowshare-turned-sword…and those who forged it. You keep the *living*…then hope and pray they don’t spin out while you cling to the rest of it.
Maybe humanity was its own worst enemy, but humanity had set it all into motion in another time, and they were still out there…creating again, somewhere in the solitude of tonight. Above ground or buried in a Vault made not a tad of difference – the decades had moved on while the core remained unchanged. People built, and they tore down. They lived…and they died. They were still bad, and good…and at least the good folks were still out there.
And here, in the flow of a sweet Celtic melody, carried on an undercurrent of undying hope, by a living voice other than his own…and by that warm feel of companionship within reach. It’s been a pretty all right day, Justin thought, yawning, as he rolled onto his back and gazed overhead…
Sirius was looking down on him…watching over him, as it had countless others, for millienna. Cassiopeia was there…and Orion, mythology’s mightiest hunter, magnified and majestic…out of reach, yet seemingly close enough to touch.
Countless others, he thought, as his eyes slipped closed. And I am now amongst their number. The heavens can see me…they know my name…
Know my name.
My name.
Name –
His thoughts drifted away, and when he returned to them, the names in a new tomorrow were there.