The Fallout 3
#3 of Fallout
The Fallout By Kendo Kawabata Chapter 3 : It's not the same.
The bridge leading out of Sanctuary was broken. The only real way in, if people didn't wish to cross the river that seperated the neighbourhood from the area beyond. Beside the first house at the entrance, stood the fading sign that greeted everyone as they came in. "Welcome to Sanctuary Hills" was written in large metal letters attached to the front of the sign. Underneath, were the words "Your place to call home", but those words had been painted on in cursive writing, and now they were fading away. Adam stood there at the entrance, looking at the bridge that lead the way beyond. Half of the side had caved in, as if it had simply crumbled under from too much weight. The lion gently tested the surface of the bridge with his foot. It felt sturdy enough to walk over, but just putting his foot down on the slats were enoguh to make them creak. loudly. Thankfully the railing on the right side had managed to stay upright, so there was something ot hold onto as Adam carefully, step by step, began to make his way across the bridge. Cadwell hovered behind him, the robot didn't seem in the least bit concerned, if that was possible, that the bridge was creaking underneath them. Of course, he could probably hover over water anyway, so there wasn't much of a need for him to be concerned about falling in. For Adam though, he did not want to fall in. The water looked just as sickly green as the creek had been, and if the crek had been any indication, then the water below him was probably tained prety badly. "Please don't fall in, please don't fall in" Adam repeated in his mind as he carefully stepped over, hearing the wood creak under each step of his boots. "I really, really don't want to drown in radiated water" he said to himself. When he reached the middle, he came to the point where the tilted collapsed side was biggest. with how big the damage was, something big must have tried to cross over and ended up falling into the river. And ther was something in the water that looked like such a thing had happened. Adam held onto the handrail as he carefully peered over the edge, beyond the cracked and rotten slats of wood. He recognised the remains of the Vault-Tech van down there in the murky waters. It was lying on its side, the back doors open and the windshield gone, most likely shattered from either the impact or the dust cloud. And behind it, stuck deep in the rivers much, was the army truck that had blocked off the road before the blast. The canvas roofing had rotten away to just darkened rags, the metal of the truck rusted and aged. Adam could make out several skeletons in the back, the remains of whatever army cadets that had tried to crawl out of the truck while they were still alive. "What happened there?" Adam asked himself as he surveyed the scene below him. If he had to guess, the Vault-Tech rep must have fled the scene after Adam and his family had been allowed inside the fences perimeter. He must have gotten into his truck and tried to get past the barricade, and then tried to cross the bridge. Maybe the army guys had given chase or were attempting to flee as well when the bomb went off and the dust cloud washed over the area. And then, they were either knocked off the brdige by the blast, or the blast just broke the bridge from under them. "Sunday drivers I believe" Cadwell said simply as he hovered in place, letting Adam take his time to survey the damage. "They couldn't get out of there" Adam said as he could see the soldiors had scrambled hard trying to get out of the truck, all of them frozen in place where they had tried clawing their way out and over each other. He couldn't see anything in the Vault-Tech van, at least from his perspective. What if the rep had gotten away? Or maybe, more then likely, he had been pinned under water and died like the soldiors? It was hard to say, but Adam wasn't going to go down there to check and make sure. Adam took a breath as he turned his attention away from the bridge and continued to carefully make his way across the bridge. Every step made the wood creak in the way that it sounded like it was going to break under his foot. But it was just a sound by the time he made it to the other end, no further wood broke underfoot by the time he made it to the other side. "I guess the bridge was sturdier then it looked" Adam said as he found himself standing on the road that lead into the neighborhood. Cadwell floated up beside him, the robot octopus seemingly uninterested in Adams worry. "I didn't feel anything" Cadwell proclaimed. It wasn't like he could have anyway, floating that high above the ground he didn't need to touch it anyway. But Adam didn't say anything to correct or contradict him, mostly out of fear that the robots wrath would surface again. Instead, he stuck his hands in the pocket of his jacket and turned to the road. The surface had cracked apart and lifted upwards and fallen downwards in many places, like a sheet of biscuits that had been lifted up and then dropped down. Weeds again, those thick thorny weeds had poked through various cracks and lines in the road, while the grass that had used to grow on either side had withered away. Adam simply shook his head as he began to walk forward along the road. It was all so different, and yet at the same time, it was still familiar to him. He had walked down this road before plenty of times, but only a few times all the way to Concord. If he had ended up missing the bus. It was usually just to the gas station that was along the way. Usually because his mother ran out of milk or bread and needed them at once. So rather then walk herself she'd send him along. Usually with a few extra dollars for a Nuka Cola or a tube of crisps for his trouble. It was around a five minute walk to the gas station, and he figured the walk to Concord would take him about fifteen to twenty minutes. So if he didn't stop, he'd be at the town within half an hour. He was familiar enough with the route, as he went to school in Concord anyway. There was no sign of life as Adam looked around himself as he walked. It was just so eerie and silent. All the trees were bare, and the grass was dead, there were no other ravens or birds around. He did have the worry that there would be more of those Ghouls lying around. But he had Cadwell with him. And Cadwell was armed a lot better then he was. It wasn't like Adam had built in flame thrower made out of a water pistol on him. There was a tree that had collapsed over the road, creating a large bare pillar in their path. The cause of the topple turned out to be a rusted metal shell of a car that had crashed into it, with enough force to crumpe the front and crack the tree to make it topple. Adam stopped by the car and took a look over for a moment. He didn't want to really look, but at the same time he did feel a little curious. And he didn't want to poke his nose into the shattered passenger window and end up with a naked mole rat attacking him. Or having a Ghoul try to pull him into the car. His curiosity won out though as he carefully stepped up to the door and peered into the ruined car. His eyes had to get used to the dark interior as he gazed at the scene inside. Behind the wheel of the car, lay the skeleton of a canine in a black tattered suit, a hat still perched on the broken skull. Beside the skeleton lay an open briefcase, various papers scattered over the seat, covered in dust and dirt so thickly Adam couldn't make out what was on them. Someone had just been going along their day, and ended up crashing in the dust cloud. "Poor man" Adam said as he straightened up. There didn't seem to be anything else further in the car. "I should say sir. That was a vintage model car. He should have been watching the road" Cadwell pointed out. Adam just shook his head as he put his hands back in his pockets and continued to walk along. There was nothing else on the road that Adam was able to see, all he could hear was the sound of dust and dirt under his shoes. And the strange hovering noise that Cadwell apparenlty was making. It sounded like a vwoop vwoop noise that he had never actually noticed before. In fact, it was actually kind of obvious with how silent everything was. "I never noticed you making that noise before" Adam commented as they continued to travel the road together slowly. "Do you always make that noise, and we just don't hear it?" he asked. "I only make this noise when I'm bored" Cadwell pointed out. "Other times I make this noise" and then the robot began to make a rapid beeping noise that sounded like the noise a truck made when it was backing up. "Oh, I see" Adam said as he found himself starting to smile from the robots antics. "And at other times I make this noise" Cadwell continued as the beeping stopped, and was suddenly replaced by the noise that a radio made when one was trying to change the channels. It sounded like he was trying to tune himself. "Ok Cadwell. I get it" Adam said as he found himself starting to actually laugh. "You... you can make whatever noises you want" he said as he stopped laughing to himself. He was kind of glad that be brought Cadwell along. It took him a moment though, to realise that he had just given the robot permission to make whatever irritating noise that he chose to come up with. "Why thank you Master Adam" Cadwell said, his voice actually sounding happy at the permission he had just been given. "I'd been working on this one for a while and I'm happy to have someone hear it at last." "Oh...well... "Adam began, before Cadwell started to make a noise that he was somehow .... singing. In 'Doos' and 'Dees'. "Doo-doo-doo doo-doo .... Dee-dee-dee dee-dee.... Doo-doo-doo Doo-Doo....Dee-dee-dee dee-dee...." "Thank God no-one else is around to hear this" Adam thought to himself as he did his best to smile along with the floating killing machine beside him, not wanting Cadwell to have any reason to think that his new ''singing'' was not going to be appreciated. Although his smile was more along the lines of a grimace as he continued down the path. The road seemed longer then he remembered, as many of the familiar sights that he used to see along the side of the road were now gone. The towering electricity poles, the speed signs, the passing cars even. The electricity poles were aged and broken, the metal creaking as they passed by. The speed signs were rusted over and or knocked down into the dirt, surrounded by thorny weeds. And there were no more cars that passed them by. They were gone too. As Cadwell continued his tuneless tune, they passed by another car, one that had flipped over into the ditch beside the road. It lay upside down in the ditch, a view into the interior of the car impossible with the amount of weeds that had grown around the sides of the rusted vehicle. After several more minutes of walking, and the robot continuing with his singing rather publicly, the road began to turn around a built up hill. Behind that large mound Adam could see the top of a red pointed metal structure, which he was surprised was still standing. "Looks like we're here" Adam said in relief. He continued to walk as he passed around the bend, the gas station coming into view around the bend as he walked off the road onto the service entry on the side. The Red Rocket Gas Station was a low squat building with a large annex that covered four individual lanes. On top of the annex were the name of the building crafted out of large metal letters that used to house lights inside them. Now all the bulbs were broken and the letters dark, with several missing. The trademark Red Rocket was perched ontop of the sprawling annex, a more cartoonish version then a scientifically accurate one. The way it was perched suggested it was using the annex as a launching pad. A large metal construct was at the edge of the annex, a towering sign that depicted the prices of fuel. "A dollar ten per gallon? I can remember when it was 90 cents per gallon. It's just going to climb up instead of going down" Adam said to himself under his breath as he recounted the last time his father had driven past the station on his way to Concord while Adam had been in the car at the time. Those prices were still there, frozen forever in time. "Oh, I wonder if they're still open" Cadwell said as he broke out of his tune and began to hover himself over the broken ground. The concrete had broken here as well, creating more weeds and dirt patches underfoot. There were two cars in the laneways, both rusted over and flat on the ground as their tires were destroyed. The laneways didn't actually use a set of pumps on either side. There were two large metal arms that protruded from above the cars which automatically refuelled the cars when they pulled up. So all the driver had to do was head inside to pay up. One metal arm was still connected to one of the cars, while the other had fallen to the ground, pulling several feet of cables and wire along with it. There was a body underneath the cables, the person having been crushed by the falling piece of equipement. There was another body sprawled across the intact car, slumped against the driver side window by its arm. Cadwell hovered over to the front entrance of the station as Adam walked over to the car to take a look. The body itself was dressed in a faded and rotten two piece suit, a packet of decayed cigarettes in its clenched hand on the ground. "Smoking kills" Adam thought to himself as he inspected the skeletal remains. He noted that there was a briefcase on the front seat, still in rather good condition. The outside leather was cracked and faded, but it still seemed sturdily built. There was also the scattered remains of a newspaper and a few aged bottles of beer. Something snapped behind him. Adam almost jumped out of his skin as he heard the snapping noise, like someone had just stepped on a twig. His hands quickly fumbled into his pockets as he tried to remember which one carried his pistol as his eyes darted back and forth to find the source of the noise. "CADWELL" he shouted as he heard another noise coming from around the cornor of the building, where an aged ice machine was sitting. He could hear the pattering of footsteps coming from around the broken and derelict device, and whatever it was it sounded pretty big to be making such large footsteps. Adam brought his gun up to defend himself as he heard the thing get closer. His hand was actually shaking as he tried to hold the weapong steady as he glanced back at the front of the station, but Cadwell was nowhere to be seen. "Where is that damn robot?" he said as he turned back towards the ice machine. What if it was another ghoul? Or worse, more then one? What if it was a whole bunch of them and they got to him before Cadwell came out? A shadow appeared on the ground at the edge of the machine as Adam held the gun up, his finger wrapped around the trigger. Whatever it was, he was going to fire first. He held the gun as steadily as he could in his shaking hand as he aimed the sight at a dog. Adam slowly lowered the gun in surprise as he saw a dog turn the cornor next to the machine. It was a pretty big dog, dark mottled brown with large friendly looking eyes. "A dog?" Adam said as he felt his shoulders slump in relief as he lowered the gun. It took him a moment to realise the dog was a german shephard. When the shephard turned its head towards Adam it wagged its tail and let out a couple of happy sounding barks. "Hey there boy" Adam said with a laugh of relief as he got himself on his one knee and held his arms out. The dog barked again before it headed straight for him, wagging his tail the whole time as it sniffed curiously at Adams outstretched hand. "You're not viscious, are you?" Adam said with a smile as the dog started to lick his hand rather eagerly and attempted to lick at his face. Adam laughed as he held the dog down as best he could as the mutt started to slobber on his face when it could reach him. "What on earth are you getting licked by? A walking shag carpet?" Adam heard Cadwell say as the robot finally floated over towards him, the robots eyes focusing on the dog that was rubbing its body up against Adams in hope of a scratch. "I called out for you, where were you?" Adam asked as he rubbed his hands over the dogs back. The dog let out a happy whine and its leg started to buck as it raised its head with a silly happy grin on its face. "I was inspecting inside, in case there were any nasty surprises lurking. You won't believe the places I have found those giant Radcoaches or found mole rats in tight spaces" Cadwell explained before he pointed at the dog with the tip of his machete. "And what is this?" "Cadwell, it's a dog" Adam said as he scratched his fingers behind the dogs ears. "I think its a boy. He must have been wandering around here" he said as he saw how happy the dog was for a scratch. "Master Adam, please remove your hands from that walking carpet" Cadwell said firmly as he waved the machete at the dog like a pointing stick. "It's probably covered in fleas and ticks and who knows what else it could be carrying." "So we just leave him here? That's not the right thing to do" Adam said as he felt the dog rear up on his hind legs and plant his forelegs against his chest. He had to struggle to push the dog off as he felt his slobbering tongue start licking at his face. "Who knows where that tongue has been" Cadwell said. "Get him off him before I nueter you myself" he threatened as Adam managed to get the dog off him. "Cadwell, you're not hurting him" Adam said firmly back to him. "I wonder if he knows any tricks? How about...Sit" he said firmly to the dog. The dog immediately sat on its hind legs and sat up as straight as he could. "Lie down" Adam said. The dog immediatley lay flat with his head between its forepaws, its big brown eyes looking up at Adam expectantly. "Roll over" Adam said. The dog immediately rolled over and looked up at Adam with his tongue hanging out, expecting praise. "Oh look, he knows a few tricks. Does this mean you'll be adopting him?" Cadwell said, with a sarcastic tone in his voice. "He must have been someones pet if he knows tricks" Adam said as he rubbed the dogs ears again. "How could someone just abandon him like this? Dad always said if you got a pet it was part of the family and you always looked after it, even if it was a fish." "Master Adam, we are hardly in a position to be taking on a pet, especially a mutt like that" Cadwell pointed out with the blade of his machete. "What would your father say if he was here, seeing you petting a mangey mongrel in broad daylight?" "How can you say no to this face?" Adam asked as he cupped the dogs muzzle in his hands and turned the dog towards the floating octopus. "Look how cute he is, how can I just turn him away?" he asked. "Quite easily" Cadwell pointed out. "Cadwell, come over here and pet him" Adam said. "You want me to pet that thing?" "Yes, now come over here." "I refuse. Petting a mangey mongrel is beneath my service coding." "Cadwell, that's an order!" If a robot could display indignanty, then Cadwell would be a shining beacon of the emotion as the whole robots body began trembling with a silent pouting at having to be ordered to pet a common stray. But, Cadwell reluctantly gave in. His arm carrying the machete slowly lowered to the ground, and with a 'click' sound, the blade detached where it had been secured with the robots remaining hand. With a floating movement that suggested the robots extreme reluctance, he floated towards Adam and raised his hand like he was about to touch something filthy. The dog leaned forward and gave the metal hand an eager sniffing, folding his ears back as he investigated its new metal friend of his new lion friend. After a few moments of sniffing the metal hand, the dog gave a happy sounding 'woof' and started to lick at Cadwells digits. "See? He's a nice dog" Adam said as he heard Cadwell make a few unsure sounds and his lights dimly flickered along with the noises. "I....I suppose" Cadwell said before he quickly withdrew his hand and then picked up the machete blade, clicking it back in place. "But, I refuse to look after it. If you want a pet Master Adam, I advise you to follow your late fathers advice. Look after it yourself" Cadwell said before the robot spun around and started floating back into the ruined building. "I'm going to call you Rocket" Adam said with a smile as he gave the dogs neck a rub, getting a happy sounding bark from the dog. "Do you like that name? Rocket? You like being a Rocket?" Adam asked him with a smile. "ROCKET?" Cadwell said as he turned around in the doorway of the building. "You want to call it that?" "Well, we found him at the Red Rocket Gas Station" Adam pointed out as he stood up. "I think its appropriate." "What kind of a name is Rocket anyway? It sounds like something you would call a racoon for a joke" Cadwell said as he went back into the building. "Well, what would you call him then?" Adam asked as he followed Cadwell into the building. The door opened into the shop part of the building. Several large vending machines for the Nuka Cola bottles and milk bottles were lined up against one wall, with rows of shelving on another. There was a counter with a cash register and a computer terminal against the far end, next to a door that looked to lead into the actual garage of the station. But the vending machines had aged, horribly. The doors were hanging off the machines, the insides gutted. Broken glass lay across the floor like scattered diamonds, the remains of what the machines used to hold. The shelves were empty, only a few boxes and tins of food left that scavengers had left behind. Various tins of car oils and boxes of auto parts were left on other shelves and on the floor, more then what was left of the food. "What about Dogmeat? That seems more like an appropriate name" Cadwell said as he floated across the trashed floor. "How is that any better then Rocket?" Adam asked him. His boots cracked on the broken glass that littered the floor as he looked around him. His new pet wandered around against his feet, sniffing along the floor for anything interesting. "At least if we call him dogmeat, we know what we'll be eating if food runs low" Cadwell proclaimed as he hovered his way into the garage of the station. "We are not eating the dog" Adam said. But it was then he realised that Cadwell did have a point. Although he had eaten that morning, it wouldn't be long before Adam would be hungry again. And it wasn't like he could survive on mole rat meat all the time. He looked over at the shelves, walking over and inspecting the food items that were left behind. It took him a moment to realise that, while he was looking, his hand had wandered down to his pocket almost out of reflex to reach for his wallet. "But there's no-one here to sell it" Adam said to himself as he looked at the sparse shelves before him. Could he just...take it? It felt like stealing to him. Granted, there was no-one there to stop him, and it looked like people had gone ahead before him and just raided the place. But, just to take what he wanted. It still felt like stealing to him. Was it still stealing if there was no-one left to consider it stealing? Or was it stealing beccause he thought it was? "I wish dad was here so I could ask him" Adam thought to himself. But his father wasn't, so he'd have to make the decision himself. He'd have to make all his own decisions from hence forth, wouldn't he. If he was going to start taking things from the store, he'd need something to carry them in. He noticed a few rusted shopping baskets near the floor beside the counter, but they wouldn't really do, if he had to carry things for who knew how long. Wait, there was that briefcase in the car. Adam ducked back outside and headed to the car, moving over to the drivers side door. The door itself was rusted shut, and he couldn't pull it open. But the window was shattered as well, the glass melted into the frame of the door. As carefully as he could, Adam leant through the window and carefully took hold of the briefcase. He carefully pulled it towards him, the handle still attached. It didn't feel like it was going to break if he held it. Once he pulled himself from the window of the car, he placed the case on the hood of the car and inspected the locks. They were open, the case itself wasn't sealed closed. The locks worked as he was able to open it. But the combination dials were rusted into place, so there was no way to lock it. The hinges creaked open as he lifted the lid. The inside reminded him of his fathers briefcase that he took with him to work. It was full of legal looking documents and office apparel that hadn't been destroyed. Adam carefully removed the papers from teh breifcase and left them on the bare front seat, only pulling himself out of hte car when the case was empty. He stretched his back a little and then went back into the gas station. "Well, there does not seem to be any people here. Good thing too, because I did not fancy being shot today" Cadwell said as Adam made his way to the counter and placed the breiface ontop of it. The robot sounded almost disapointed as he hovered in the middle of the room, watching as Adam started to fill the case with what he could find. He could not help but feel that it was still technically stealing as he took what little food he could find. But this was necessary, wasn't it? Adam did manage to find several small packets of Gum Drops, a couple of packets of Fancy Lads Snack Cakes, and along one of the bottom shelves, several tins of Cram. It was not exactly his most favourite of tinned meats, but it wasn't like he could be picky with the slim findings. Behind the counter he had a little more luck. There was a box of Sugar Bombs cereal, although without milk it kinda lost the point of eating cereal. And a packet of Dandy Boy Apples under several old newspapers. Someone must have put those there to grab later. The case was starting to get full as Adam went to close it once he had packed what he could find in it, but then bumped the register with his elbow. He jumped when he heard the ding of the cash tray as it suddenly pushed outwards with a surprisingly loud noise. "Did you mean to do that?" Cadwell asked as he turned his good eyes towards Adam. Adam couldn't help but look into the drawer of the register, and was surpised to see that it was still full of money. The notes were all still tied in bundles, and the coins were still in their appropriate little holes. "Why didn't anyone take the money?" he asked out loud as he stared. He had never seen that much money in the open before, not even when his father took him to work and he got to see the inside of the banks safe that one time. Did he dare take it as well? He was already stealing from the shelves. Why not the register as well? Besides, what if he needed it? Still feeling slightly uneasy, he took the notes in his hands and stuffed them into the slots in the briefcase. He figured there must have been several hundred dollars in the till there just in notes alone. But he left the coins there. He couldn't see a way of actually carrying them properly. "Ok Cadwell, we should get going" Adam said as he snapped the lid of the briefcase shut and pulled it off the counter. "I was beginning to wonder if you would ever start moving Master Adam" Cadwell said as he hovered his way through the open door. "Come along, mutt. If you have too" he added without turning around. "Come on Rocket" Adam said to the shephard, who had laid himself down in front of one of the vending machines and had been watching them curiously. When Adam addressed him the dog gave a happy sounding woof and immediately jumped to his feet to follow. Now a trio, the three of them made their way back across the entrance to the gas station and turned back onto the main road, taking it around the station as it curved and lead into Concord from behind the station itself. Adam held the briefcase by the handle as he walked, watching Rocket sniff his way along the side off the road, occasionally running forward or running to the sides to investigate some strange new smell he had discovered, or just appear to jump around happily. Cadwell did not seem very amused by the dogs antics as he seemed to make several annoyed sounding beeps and sounds at a low volume, which gave Adam the impression the robot was doing its own version of sweearing under his breath. Once on the road proper again, Adam could see the buildings of Concord in the distance that were already visible. It wouldn't take much longer for them to actually reach the town itself, but even from that distance, Adam could see the town was not the same as it used to be. The school was always the first thing that most people went past as they followed the road, secured safely behind a high chainlink fence. It wasn't a big school, only a few hundred students ranging across the years. It didn't actually hold college or university level students, you had to travel across Boston to attend them. The front of the school was a tarmac parking area for buses and cars. The school itself a long and squat building, only one level. Behind it would like the playground equipement and the school oval where they held their sports. Adam reached out and touched his hand against the links in the chain fence. They were once painted black, but now they were rusted and creaking, smudges of orange appearing on his fingerstips as he brushed them along. It only seemed like just a couple of days ago he had been on the other side of that fence, getting onto the bus with Stuart to head back home. Now said bus was in the parking lot, on its side. The bright yellow paint had faded and worn away, the bus nothing more then a rusted hollow shell. He stopped when he reached the gates of Concord Elementary Prep. The wrought iron gates were still closed, locked together by a large metal chain and several padlocks, all of which were now rusted and aged. The sign for the school used to stand upright outside the gates, made out of metal and set in a stone frame. But that sign was now collapsed on the ground. Adam could see through the gates that the school was just a derelict ruin now. The crossing out the front of the school, the intersection on the main road, was just as dilapidated. The cement cracked, weeds poking through and most of the traffic signal lights now laying crushed on the ground. Adam stopped, set his brieface on the ground and wrapped a hand around a metal pole in the gate and peered through. He hadn't finished school before all of this had happened, and now he'd never get the chance. Everyone he knew there would be gone now. His teachers, the other school kids. That harsh principle who always seemed to hate being there. His math teacher that always spoke too fast for anyone to hear him. Their sadistic gym teacher and his affinity for rope climbing. All of them were long gone by now. "I....I met Stuart on the bus the first time I came here" Adam said softly as he stared at the derelict building. "We didn't even speak to each other. I had no idea who he was, or who any of the other kids were. We were just strangers." He felt Rocket sit beside his leg and nuzzle at his hand, giving his fingers a few licks. Adam gently wrapped his hand around the dogs head and gently scritched at his ears as Cadwell hovered behind him. "We actually talked a couple of weeks later. He saw me with my Grolgar comics and he asked to read them with me" Adam said with a soft smile as he recounted that little memory from so long ago. It really was so long ago now. "I always wondered why he wanted to be friends with me. He grew up to be on teh football team, popular with everyone. The kind of jock that wouldn't be caught with a kid that sat in the library and read comics in his spare periods" Adam said with a small chuckle. "I .... I never even thought to ask him." "I suppose it is a bit late to be asking those kind of questions, Master Adam" Cadwell said as he hovered behind him. "It's a bit late for a lot of things" Adam said, with more then a bite of regret in his voice. "We...we hadn't even been together that long. It was only a month. Do you know how he told me he cared that much about me?" Adam said as he stared at the school. Cadwell very wisely chose that time to not say anything even remotely funny. He just simply hovered there, letting Adam talk. "We were under the bleachers during lunch time. We were reading comics together and discussing something...I can't really remember what. But, Stuart kept getting closer to me each time he turned the pages on his comic. It took me a while to realise he was right beside me" Adam continued softly. "Then, he just... kissed me. Really hard. Like, shoved me on my back, got ontop of me and kissed me" Adam said with a smile. He could feel his eyes starting to tear up at he memory. "I was so surprised, I didn't know what was happening. It was only when he got off me that he said he'd been waiting a long time to do that to me." "Why did he wait?" Cadwell asked. "He said he was nervous" Adam admitted. "And if he held it off any longer, he'd be too scared to do it ever. I didn't know what to do or what to say to him. At least for a bit. Then...then I just kissed him back. We spent the rest of the period just maing out together" he said. "I assume this story ends with you two without your clothes on at some point?" Cadwell asked. Adam should have been offended by Cadwells complete lack of tact or a working filter, but instead he just shook his head as he wiped his eyes with his hand, getting a disapointed whining from Rocket when he stopped scritching at his ears. "No. We never went that far" Adam admitted as he looked back at the school. "It just... never felt like the right time. He was happy to wait, he told me so many times. But... I ....i just don't know why I kept putting it off. We had a chance a couple of times, but ....but I kept getting cold feet about it." "I thought going all the way would be a good thing for two people in love" Cadwell said to him. "If your parents are any indication, I do find it strange that you never did anything." Adam didnt' say anything as he shut his eyes and leant his head forward. Regret was welling up inside of him, as well as disapointment and heartache. All three at once and in great volumes that washed their way through his insides. "I just wasted every chance we had together" Adam said softly as he felt the tears wet his eyelids. "I just kept putting it off, thinking we'd have another chance together. We actually thought the next weekend, the next weekend when Mom and Dad were out of town, we could just.... finally do it. But...but we wasted our chance...I wasted our chance... every damn time." "And now I'll never get that chance, because I didn't take it when I could have" he said as he opened his eyes and pulled himself away from the fence. Rocket whined softly beside him and licked at his hand again. "Perhaps you will get another chance again once day, Master Adam" Cadwell suggested. "I'm sure someone else will come along and make you feel that it's worth to take a chance again. And if someone special does not come along, I will throw them into the river and tell them not to come back" Cadwell proclaimed. Adam chuckled to that as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and bent down to pick up his briefcase. "I don't think you need to do that" Adam said to him. "But, I know he's been.... gone for, for so long. But it doesn't feel that way for me. It's still too fresh. I'm not going to be over him or my family for a good while. But, but thanks for trying Cadwell. I'm glad I have you with me" he said. "At least you still have your memories of him Master Adam. They can't be taken away from you" Cadwell pointed out. "Now, enough dilly dallying. We have a whole town to pick our way through. Thankfully we haven't been shot at yet, but that's not good sign. If we don't get shot at, that means there's no-one here doing the shooting" he pointed out as he began to hover along. Adam nodded as he started to follow, but he gave the school one last glance over the back of his shoulder as he walked. Yes, he did have his memories of Stuart and his family. But memories never lasted forever. They made their way over the intersection, and Adam noticed a crow sitting on the cables that connected the crossing lights together. It regarded him with a beady evil eye, but it didn't move anything other then its head. Adam wasn't sure why, but it gave him the creeps. It couldn't have been the same crow from the previous day. He shivered a little as they walked down the road, the houses beginning to move up along side them. The houses were the tall narrow kind that seemed to be packed in together to save space. The front porches were sagging, the windows blown open. Doors had been barricaded with planks to keep people out. Some of the houses had been completely demolished, leaving gaps like dominos between the buildings. Cadwell floated himself past a car that had crashed into a house as Adam took a look in the side window. The skeletal remains of what looked like a canine in a dress lay crushed against the steering wheel. He didn't look in the back seat. There was no need to guess what the baby carrier had been holding. Rocket seemed perfectly happy to sniff his way along the road as they carefully made their way through the eerily silent town. Normally, Concord would have been busy with people crossing the streets and cars coming back and forth. And the occasional student who wanted to play hookey. But now the streets were much like Sanctuary. Everything was falling down and rotting away, and the weeds had tried to claim back the land. There were more skeletal figures lying in the street, ordinary every people who had tried to outrun their fate, and had simply collapsed and died. "It's like...." Adam said to himself as he tried to find a way to describe what he was seeing as they turned a cornor on the street. The cornor lead to the street that fed directly into the center of town, a place Adam was familiar with on past visits. Although everything felt so unfamiliar at the same time. "It's like someone just paused the world..."Adam said to himself as he stepped around a fallen electricity pole that had collapsed ontop of a street car. "They just paused it and just said ''Kill All'' and everything just dropped dead." It certainly felt like that was what had happened as they made their way down the street, as the houses suddenly gave way almost at once to continue along with the shops and business buildings that made up the town center. The shops were in the same derelict condition as the houses that they had passed through, although they seemed to be even more dilapidated and ruined. The windows had been either blown open in the explosion, or they had been smashed through by someone intending to raid the business. There was the bookstore that Adam had like to visit to collect the next issue of Grolgar, or to see what other books happened to be in. The front had been ripped open, the door nowhere to be seen. Burned and destroyed comics and books lay scattered across the shelving and across the floor, a sad testament to what was lost. And there was the furniture store across the street. It had collapsed in on itself, only one window display actually in some appearance of being untouched. A lone armchair sat next to a silent television that would forever wait for a home. And then he realised where he had walked to without realising. He was now standing in front of the Concord Commonwealth Bank. The very building his father had worked as the branch manager. "Father..." he said to himself as he stared up at the large brick building. The words ''Concord Commonwealth Bank'' used to be above the large doorway that lead into the lobby. Now several of them were laying across the pavement below. There was a monument in front of hte building, a pillar with several small wrought iron sheep laid out in a circle at the top. The sheep were still there. They were just rusted and ugly looking now. "This was where Father worked" Adam said as he made his way over to the front doors. Cadwell stopped his travelling down the cracked sidewalk as he turned to follow adam towards the banks entrance. Rocket followed along, wagging his tail eagerly. Adam stopped at the main entrance as he looked through the wooden doors. The glass panels had been blown open, and the doors were bent and broken in place. They wouldn't be able to open up, but they wouldn't be able to keep anyone out. The inside lobby was deserted. The floor had been made of white marble, the counters designed to match, with gold plated trimming. Large fancy landscapes had decorated the walls, and the windows covered in red velvet curtains, with large potted ferns everywhere. Behind the counters lay the offices of the branchs employees, and behind them was the elevator that would lead to the basement, where the vault had been kept. But like everything else, the inside of the bank was ruined. The marble was cracked across the floor, the decorative lamps knocked over and smashed across the floors. The paintings had faded in their frames, the landscapes now nothing but black smears of dust and soot. The velvet drapes had rotted and fallen to the floor in ugly lumps of rot. The back offices looked to be in shambles, the terminal computers just rusted shelving. What surprised him though, was that there was money scattered across the floor, laying out in the open like confettti from a parade. All of that money was just lying there, and no-one had bothered to take it. "Was this where your father worked? It does'nt look very reputable" Cadwell said as he focused his eyes on the interior of the building. "It looks a downright mess." "Father used to take me here on weekends" Adam admitted as he looked into the building. "I think he wanted me to start thinking about my future and .... I guess maybe he wanted me to follow him into banking" he said. "Did he actually say that? I always thought your father wasn't quite the type to express feelings. He reminded me of a brick wall" Cadwell pointed out. Adam couldn't help but smile to that. Yes, it was true. His father did have trouble, or rather was uncomfortable, sharing his feelings with his son and even with his wife. But, he did show his support to Adam in other ways. Usually it was simply by spending time with him that didn't involve chores around the house. "He took me here last month... the month before all this" Adam corrected himself as he stared into the ruined foyer. He could hear Rocket sniffing his way around on the ground as the dog explored. "I think he liked showing me around, letting me see the bank and how it worked." "I made him laugh the first time I saw the vault. I was disapointed when I got to finally get inside and see what it looked like. He asked me why i was upset, and I told him i wanted to see big piles of gold everywhere and lots of treasure" Adam said with a smile. "I had never heard my dad laugh so hard before." "I remember this one time, he walked into work with me and there was a couple sitting on the chair over tehre" he said, pointing ot one of the upturned lounges in the foyer. "They were a black couple, and the wife was crying. He asked her what was wrong. Her husband said they had been told their loan had been pre-approved so they could buy a house together instead of renting. But when they got there, the loan officer had told them to get out, the branch didn't serve their kind." "Well that man was a right bastard" Cadwell said. "Father made me wait outside while he took them into his office. They were in there for a long time before they came out. And she wasn't crying anymore. Father had not only cleared their loan, he gave them more then enough and told them not to worry about repayments for a further six months" Adam said. "then he fired that loan officer on the spot." "That sounds like a nice thing your father did" Cadwell said. "I was really quite proud of him for doing that" Adam admitted with a small smile. "but he didn't care about the praise. He didn't see it as anthing special, he just said he was doing his job." But that momentary feeling of pride that he had for his father was short lived as he looked over the ruined bank. His father was gone. He'd never again take Adam to the bank in an effort to impress him with that world behind the counters. He'd never again pat Adam on the back and tell him 'Good Job' when he recieved top marks on his reports. He'd never again bury himself in the newspaper and pretend not to hear him when Adam had a person question to ask him. His father was gone. Adam hung his head against the frame of the door as he closed his eyes, trying hard not to cry again. He could feel the tears brim against his eyelids as he fought to keep his emotions under control. Why was he always on the verge of crying? Why couldn't it get easier? Or was it too early for it to get easier. "If your father was here, I'm sure he'd say something along the lines of 'Man Up' I believe" Cadwell said to him. "I'm sure that would be considerd inapropriate, but it would be something he'd say." "Yeah, he would say something like that" Adam said as he slowly stood up and wiped his eyes again. He took a step back and shifted the briefcase to his other hand. It was starting to get a little on the heavy side. He felt a smile creep over his face as he realised that he was leaving the bank, with a briefcase, just like his father used to. Maybe he really was following in his fathers footsteps, even if it was in the weirdest of circumstances. "I guess I'll never know how dad would have felt about me and Stuart" he thought to himself as he gave the bank one last look over his shoulder. "although I'm sure if he did know and he had something against it, he would have said something." "Oh, are we ready to go again?" Cadwell said as he spotted Adam walking away. "Ugh, do we have to leave just becuase you've decided you're done? Why can't we rest for a few minutes more? I've been on my feet all day." "You don't have feet" Adam reminded him as Rocket bounded up to his side. "Well, if I did they'd be swollen and sore" Cadwell said as his lights flickered dimly to indicate that the robot was pouting. Adam shook his head to that as they walked away from the bank and continued down the street. It was ...chilling to walk down the street like that, not have a single car pass them by. All the usual sounds of the town were gone. The bustle of people, the annoyed grunts of people arguing about unfair prices. Just the usual sounds that were now gone and replaced by nothing. Adam looked up at they, wondering how much time had actually passed. But the sun didn't appear to have actually moved in the sky at all. It was still that pale dull colouring, and the clouds were still absent. He didn't feel cold though. Or hot, considering it was just the sun above him. His feet soon carried him to the middle of the town, the center of Concord was dominated by a large roundabout with a towering platform in the middle. On the middle of the platform was a monument to fallen soldiors, three army men holding their rifles in various poses made out of aged green metal. Although the metel had now turned near black and the platform was leaning to the side. It used to be surrounded by a colourfull garden, but now it was just weeds. There were several crashed cars laying around the roundabout, as if they had collided with each other and were then brushed up into the gardens and left there. All the main streets in the town led into the center roundabout, so there were wrecked cars there then Adam had seen before. And across from him lay the ice cream parlour at the cornor of the street. The sign on the shop had been a large ice cream sundae with the words ''Sundae Fundae'' written on the giant spoon that stuck out of the large glass. The sign was still there, it was just rusted over now. Outside the shop, there used to be large brightly coloured parasols under equally bright patio furniture. The owner ofthe shop, the heavyset rhino named Mr Dipietro, had always insisted on bright cheerey coloures to go with his brightly flavoured ice cream. It was meant to be a happy store. And it had been. "We came here last time.... the last time we came here was when we brought Tommy home from the hospital in Boston" Adam said as he crossed the street, stepping over the remains of a skeletal bovine in tattered rags. Another unfortunate victim. "That was about the same time you purchased me, wasn't it?" Cadwell asked as he hovered behind Adam. "Father got you the same day Tommy was born, because he knew that Mother would be needing an extra hand. This was the last time we actually went here. We used to go every second weekend" Adam admitted as he stepped up to the ruined parlour. The parasols and the tables were secured to the pavement around the store, so they were still standing. But the fabric of the parasols were in tatters and faded. The chairs were crushed up against the front door, which had caved in. The front windows were destroyed, the colourfull curtains now just hanging in tatters around the window displays. "Mr Dipietro was a really nice guy" Adam remembered as he looked into the window display after putting his briefcase on the ground. The front windows used to contain large glasses filled with fake sundaes and large displays of the toppings that were used. Now they were long gone, the window displays empty. "I don't think he had kids or anyone in his life. But he was a really nice guy. He was always really nice to us." "Define nice. Because I've read news stories in the Boston Bugle about what happens when apparenlty friendly fat older men are nice to children half their age" Cadwell said from beside him. "He was nice in that he'd give me free toppings" Adam said, slightly hurt at the accusation about the kindly old rhino. "He'd do the same for Mother too. Father he always gave a free drink. Mother joked it was because Father helped him with his loan for his business. I just thought he was a nice man." "Well, that does shatter my theory about him" Cadwell pointed out. "He didn't deserve to die down in the Vault. No-one did" Adam said quietly as he walked over to one of the patio tables. He suddenly felt tired, becoming aware of how long he had been walking and how far. He bent over and picked up one of the ruined chairs and set it against the table as he carefully sat himself down in it. The chair was thankfully made of metal, so it didn't buckle under his weight. But it did creak for not having been used for so long. Adam leant forward on his arms on the table and simply rested his head against his hands. Home. School. His fathers work. His favourite ice cream parlour. It was all gone. Perhaps he had gone down into Concord hoping that someone would be nearby, but so far there was nothing. He, Cadwell and Rocket were the only ones in the town. The town itself was dead. "It's...never going to be the same, is it?" he asked himself. Why was it so hard to accept it? He was over two hundred years in the future. Everyone he knew was dead and gone ever since that day. His mother had been shot. His father dead in an ice box. His boyfriend was dead in a creek. So why was he still hoping he'd wake up and expect it all to be some kind of horrible lucid dream and everything woudl be back to normal? Why was it so hard for him to accept that everything had changed? Adam slowly sat up in the chair as he leant back, tilting his head back as he closed his eyes. He felt Rocket curl up at his feet as Cadwell hovered somewhere nearby, probably on the lookout for someone to shoot at them. Part of him just wanted to cry. Part of him just wanted to scream. Part of him just wanted to curl up under something and fall asleep and never wake up. Why did all of that feel like it was the same thing? "What am I supposed to do now? Just hope to survive? What am I actually supposed to do?" he thought to himself. Beyond going to Concord and seeing if anyone was there, he had no future plans. He felt lost. If they found someone, perhaps they could have helped him out somehow. But there was no-one there. Concord was deserted. He couldn't be the last person in the area, could he? "Why did I even come here anyway?" he asked himself. It felt kind of pointless to even be there. The whole town was dead and so was everyone in it. Adam opened his eyes slowly as he looked down the streets. He could just make out a military checkpoint that had been set up down the ways, one that covered the end of the street from both sides. It...kind of looked familiar? "Wait, that was there last time we where here" Adam said as he sat up properly and looked that way. "That's right, we were here together, and they were setting it up. The traffic was backed up" he said. "I have no idea what your talking about" Cadwell admitted to him. "That was the month before the war started, but the military was appearing everywhere" Adam remembered as he stared down at the two traffic gates that stretched over the road, with the trailer hut in the middle where the soldiors had set up camp. "We kept seeing more military guys everywhere after that." "That.... that was when Vault-Tech started to pass out applications to the vaults" Adam continued, more to himself then to Cadwell. "We knew they were building the Vault behind Sanctuary for a long time. They started work the previous year when things started to heat up" he said to himself. "But why did they wait till that month to actually start appearing in Boston? We knew we were worried about everything, but why did they wait so long to do something?" he asked himself as he stared down the street. "Perhaps the military was incompetant?" Cadwell suggested as he floated back up to Adam. "No, it kinda..... it felt different then that" Adam admitted as he stared at the checkpoint. "The army men just kept appearing after that, doing sweeps and inspections and stuff like that. They did three inspections at School that month. Two of them were in the same week. They interviewed anyone that wasn't white" he said. "Incompetant" Cadwell said again. Adam felt like something was wrong with what he was saying, like he was being slow to piece it together. It hadn't felt obvious at the time, but now that he was thinking on it, it did feel like he could figure out what felt wrong. "I don't think they were incompetant though" Adam admitted. "It felt...it felt like....wait...like they were slow to act." "How could a goverment be slow about a possible war?" Cadwell asked him. "They waited untill the last month to start cracking down on people and trying to set things up" Adam said as he slowly stood up. "And Vault-Tech was doing the same thing. Father was saying that a lot of people had to get loans from the bank just to attempt to secure a spot there." "Well, you managed to get in without paying for it" Cadwell pointed out. "But that was because the Vault-Tech guy came to our house..... the morning the bomb fell" Adam said as he realised what he had been thinking but had been unable to piece together. "They knew it was coming." "Knew what was coming?" Cadwell asked him as he turned his good eyes towards the lion. "The army. Vault-Tech. The government. They must have known" Adam said as the realisation washed over him like a wave on the beach. "They knew there was the possiblity of war, because they started building the vaults. That's when Vault-Tech starting getting big around here." "But, they didn't do anything untill that month. It was rushed, like they didn't expect things to go that far" Adam said as he looked down the street. "But if things were escalating that badly that they had to rush in, why that month? Why so close to the day the bomb went off to set up the check points and start putting the military out?" "Why was there a checkpoint in Sanctuary that day?" Adam said as he turned to look at Cadwell. "the day the bomb went off, the army set up the roadblock and there were soldiors everywhere. It felt normal though, i wasn't worried about it. We knew it was happening that way everywhere though." "But why did they have the road blocked off and the checkpoint at the vault?" Adam said. "it was like.... the vault-tech guy!" "The weird mouse person in the coat?" Cadwell asked him. "He was nervous. Jittery. I think he told Mother something about coffee, but he kept saying stuff like 'it's coming, it's close', like he knew..... he knew it was coming" Adam said in disbelief. "They all knew it was coming. He had to fill the Vault, so he chose us and gave it to us for free, because they needed the people. For that sick freezing thing they had done to us" Adam said as he balled his fist in anger. "and the goverment knew it was happening, so they sent the military to set up the checkpoint. They were ready for it, they knew it was comign that day." "They knew. Everyone knew, and they didn't do a darn thing to help us" Adam said as he slammed his hand on the table in anger. The faded and worn wooden table surface cracked loudly as it almost broke in half from the impact, the noise waking Rocket up from his dozing. "They just threw us into the vault to...to be some kind of experiment, we were just a slot to fill. And they let everyone else die, instead of helping us. THEy just.....they knew it was coming, and they did nothing. They left it too late and just ..... just did nothing..." he said. "Master Adam, did you hurt your hand on the table?" Cadwell asked as he turned his gaze at Adam. "No...no I'm fine" Adam said as he sat himself back in the chair. "I just...I just needed to say that" he said as he rubbed his hand against his forehead. He wasn't surprised with himself for having such an outburst, he was just frustrated that he hadn't seen it before, when it had been happening right in front of him. But he didn't feel all that better for now realising it. What was he supposed to do now? Knowing that Vault-Tech had set everyone up and their own government had failed to protect its own people, what good did it do to know that know? "Father is dead, Mother is dead, Stuart is dead. And Tommy is..." Adam couldn't finish that sentence before he had a sudden realisation that he had to mentally slap himself for not realising earlier. "Master Adam, are you alright?" Cadwel asked as he saw the determined look that had suddenly crossed Adams face. "I haven't seen that look on you for a good while." "I want to find Tommy. I need to find him so I can know what happened" Adam said to him. "I want ot know why they took him, and who did. I need answers, i'm....I'm so freaking stupid. How could I just get hung down by memories and forget my brother existed like that?" "Well, that was the reason to come here in the first place" Cadwell reminded him. "To look for people to point us in whatever direction there is. I'd assume north, but who knows where that could be anymore." "But I just forgot about him so easily, that's the problem" Adam said as with a somewhat defeated sigh. "I shouldn't have forgotten about him, I should be thinking ofh im. That's what brothers do, they look out for each other. And he's the only brother I'm ever going to have." "Unfortunately, it doesn't look like anyone is here" Cadwell said. "Then I guess this was a dead end then" Adam said with a sigh. "Maybe we should head back to Sanctuary and come up with a better plan. Or a better idea on what to do" he said as he leant up in his chair. "Perhaps, since there are no people here, we should head to Boston" Cadwell suggested as Rocket stood up and stretched his body. "Of course, that's much further then here. Pity the buses are no longer running. Thank you very much civilian committees" he said. "I think we shuold probably try and find more supplies before we travel to Boston" Adam said as he stood up. That would mean more foraging. "And I have no idea how long it would take to walk there" he admitted. "Also, assuming we actually find your brother, what do you inted to do?" Cadwell asked him. "I want to get some answers, like why that lizard had to kill my mother" Adam said to him. "And why we were left to die down in the vault. And why they needed to take my brother from us." "I'm going to take my brother back when I find him. And I'm going to bring him home. And I'm going to look after him, like I'm supposed to do" Adam said firmly. "But, assuming we do find him. What if he's in a family? What if he's actually being looked after by people who care for him already?" Cadwell asked. The silence that followed the question was only broken by the sudden cawing of a crow that was settled on the roof of a ruined building, before it took flight. The sudden question stopped Adams thoughts in his tracks. That was something that he had also not taken into consideration, or had even thought of before. He had assumed that Tommy would be in a bad place and that he needed to get him back, that was a no brainer for him to consider. But the possiblity that Tommy was in a happy place, surrounded by people who were looking after him and taking care of him. That was something that had never once crossed his mind to consider. And it took the family robot to come up with that one too. But it was a good question for him to consider. What would he do if he did find Tommy, and he was better off then he was with his brother in a broken and dead neighbourhood? "I....I... "Adam began to say, but he wasn't sure how to answer that. How could he answer that type of question anyway? Then the silence was broken again. But this time it wasn't the cawing of a crow. It was the sound of a gunshot. All three of them froze in place as the shot was followed by several more, and it sent a chill down Adams spine as he realised that the shots were coming from somewhere close by. "Oh good. There are people here after all" Cadwell said, the robot actually sounded pleased. Adam turned his gaze back down the street to where he could see the military check point. He knew that down that road, it ended at a T section in front of the Concord Museum of Freedom. The shots sounded like they were coming in that direction. "I don't think they're good people" Adam said as he felt his hand tremble as he brushed it against the handle of his own pistol.