Chapter 123: Riders On The Storm

Chapter 123: Riders On The Storm

The sandstorm was getting closer... and boy, did it look angry. A wall of sand, hundreds of feet high - maybe even a mile or more - boiling and churning. Every so often, there would be a boom of thunder, followed by a flash from within. It was like a great beast, clawing at the terrain, lashing forward blindly, consuming everything in its path. I'd seen several sandstorms in the past before, sure. But I'd never seen one quite like this.

On the plus side: it was louder than a diesel generator falling down a flight of stairs and smacking a deathclaw in the face. It was certainly loud enough that I could follow the five Marked Men hauling the nuke easily without them noticing. Hell, even if I wasn't invisible, they'd probably have a hard time noticing me over all that racket.

Still... the longer I shadowed the five of them hauling that massive warhead, the more uneasy I became. They'd been dragging that damn thing down the cracked and broken street a good ten or fifteen minutes now... and not one of them seemed to notice or care that the one in charge hadn't caught up with them.

On the one hand, I felt I should be grateful. They hadn't dropped what they were doing to double back, which meant they were unlikely to run into me... but on the other hand, not going back for someone missing - especially someone who seemed like he was in charge - was not normal behavior. Even for ghouls with all their skin ripped off by sandstorms and kept alive by radiation. Something wasn't right. Besides the obvious, I mean. That sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach took hold and wouldn't let go.

It's really strange, being comforted and unnerved by exactly the same thing. It's kind of like sitting down on a warm toilet seat. Comfortable, and yet extremely disquieting.

The Marked Men finally came to a stop at what could only be described as a fortress. Years ago, it may have been some kind of main street in the army town... but now? There was a wall of debris, scrap metal, and rusted car parts piled two stories high... and the reason I knew it was two stories because it stretched from the two story building on one side of the street all the way to the other two story building. An enormous, uneven roof had been constructed out of scrap metal over the street, and the gaps were filled with what looked like old deuce-and-a-half cargo tarps.

The Marked Man in front banged on the metal wall three times. Several seconds passed, and nothing happened. Then, a figure emerged onto the edge of the roof. He had some kind of huge fucking missile launcher I couldn't identify resting on his shoulder. He looked down, and then disappeared behind the roof's edge without a word. Barely a second later, there was a hideous grinding of metal against metal - louder even than the constant drone of the approaching storm - and the movement of the wall of scrap made me realize: that was the front door.

I guess I really was right to call it a fortress after all. That was just a hunch.

I was just about to move on from the Marked Men and my hidden inspection of their creepy fortress from afar, when ED-E spoke to me through my helmet com system and ruined my day completely.

"Friend_Courier. I believe we should find a way into that structure."

I could practically feel my eyes start to twitch.

"Say that again, ED-E?" I whispered, tapping the side of my helmet. "I'm not entirely sure I heard that right."

"The trigger Enemy_Courier mentioned." ED-E began. There was a click in my ear, and suddenly I heard Ulysses voice: "Warheads set off the collapse. Warheads could open the way again..." I didn't have time to question, because there was another click, and I heard ED-E again. "I believe Enemy_Courier was referring to the EOD_Mk6 device, codename:Laser-detonator."

"Let me guess..." I sighed, already knowing where this was going. "The laser detonator is inside that compound?"

"There is a high probability of that, yes." ED-E confirmed. "A preliminary scan of the structure indicates an energy signature within that corresponds to the EOD_Mk6. But there is another reason for my suggestion."

"Do I even want to know?" I asked.

"There is another mark left by Enemy_Courier on the walls of the structure." ED-E said simply. I leaned around the pile of concrete rubble I was taking cover behind, and sure enough, there was some more of Ulysses' graffiti. A white flag painted on the corner. It was half hidden beneath some rubble leaning against the building, but it was definitely visible if you knew what you were looking for.

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I couldn't find any easy way into the fortress. Not from ground level, at least. There was no way I was getting through that giant junk door in front. From the sound it made, there was probably some kind of hydraulics operating the thing. I tried to circle around the outside of the compound (moving slowly, so as to minimize any distortions from Sue's thermo-optic camouflage), and all I found were alleyways blocked off with concrete, and all the doors and windows bricked up. There must have been at least twelve buildings, with any gap between them barricaded, all stitched together to make one massive structure. It was an astonishingly thorough job...

But a sentry on the roof meant there must be a way inside from up there. That was my best bet. Granted, I probably could just smash my way through the wreckage of the bricked-up doors with my cybernetic fist, but that was sure to attract all manner of unwanted attention... and I wanted to stay hidden as long as possible.

I made my way around to the back of the fortress and saw a large section of collapsed highway leaning against the building. Several destroyed cars (or parts of cars) were also leaning up against the wreckage. All this rubble provided enough handholds for me to climb up to the roof with ease, even with the high winds threatening to blow me off balance.

I vaulted onto the roof, and landed as softly as I could, practically going down on all fours to keep my profile as low as possible. I was surprised to find that the roof wasn't level at all. Between the different heights of the buildings, the rubble, the metal over the street, and the various pieces of tarps all fluttering in the high winds like flags, it was more like an obstacle course.

Up ahead, near the edge of the roof, I could see my target: the Marked Man with the launcher. He was sitting in a small alcove constructed out of concrete and scrap metal, like a pillbox bunker, or a tiny watch tower. The strange missile launcher was leaning against the wall, and he was hunched over, intently focused on devouring some kind of meat ravenously. He didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest by the heavy winds swirling sand all around him.

"ED-E?" I whispered, skulking among the debris on the roof. "You reading me?"

"Affirmative, Friend_Courier," ED-E's voice beeped in my ear.

"I think I can get behind him," I said. "But I'm gonna need a distraction. Can you get his attention?"

ED-E didn't reply. Instead, there was a flash of electricity six or seven feet away from the Marked Man, and ED-E appeared out of thin air. He blasted a chord of patriotic marching music, fired his laser twice, and flew straight up like he was shot from a gun. The lasers hit the Marked Man in the side of the arm, but he didn't seem phased - just annoyed.

That certainly did the trick. In a flash, the meat in his hands was dropped, he was up on his feet, and the launcher was up on his shoulder. ED-E was zipping about all over the place, and he was having a hard time tracking the metal ball. So was I, if I'm honest, but that's because I was busy sneaking up behind the Marked Man.

The weapon on his shoulder let off a series of tones - like a few bars of a strangely familiar song - and the end of it exploded in fire. One after another, tiny missiles screamed out of the end. Red and orange sparks flew out behind each one, and when they exploded - missing ED-E by miles - they erupted against a ruined building off in the distance in a cascade of burning phosphorous.

Just because he missed every shot didn't mean I'd give him a chance to fire a second time. I grabbed the back of his skull with one shimmering, transparent hand, and wrapped my cybernetic arm around his neck like a vice as quickly as I could. I twisted, and there was a wrenching sound of snapping bone. Despite that, I still felt a sort of squirming movement against my grip, so I wasn't going to take any chances. I grabbed hold of the end of the launcher sitting on his shoulder, pulled away, and kicked him square in the back. The Marked Man tumbled head over heels, spinning upside down after hitting the roof's edge, and toppled to the ground. The only sound he made was the wet thud from hitting the pavement.

I clicked the button on my belt to become visible again momentarily. I wanted to check how much ammo the launcher had, and I couldn't do that if it was mostly invisible. The weapon split in half on a hinge, and revealed a small pod on the inside for tiny missiles - 12 had been fired, one was left. So I put the thing back together, settled it on my shoulder, and leaned over the edge. The Marked Man on the pavement was, amazingly enough, still writhing on the ground, trying to get up. So I fired. There was an explosion of phosphor, and all that was left of him when the smoke cleared were scorch marks, blown apart chunks of meat and bone, and a bloody stain on the concrete.

"Bad guys dealt with!" Sue chirped happily. I grumbled, turning to look at the fortress, and switched my eyes to infrared. There were several humanoid silhouettes highlighted in faint red. I couldn't tell exactly how many were inside, I just knew there were a lot.

"Not quite." I sighed, snapping my eyes back to normal. I turned back to the edge, and saw the raging sandstorm, inching closer. "We're not out of the briar patch yet."

"I guess it's a good thing you have that Red Glare, then!" Sue said. ED-E floated down and bobbed, like he was nodding in agreement.

"A rocket launcher should prove quite useful in the fights ahead, Friend_Courier." ED-E added.

"Wait, Red Glare? A rocket launcher?" I asked, taking another look at the giant metal tube - and then I did a double take. Painted onto the firing end of the launcher was an American flag that almost looked like one of Ulysses' flag markers... was this what he... I shook it off. "I thought this was a missile launcher?"

"US Army terminology defines missiles as guided munitions, Friend_Courier. The thermobaric projectiles fired from that weapon are unguided - which would make them rockets. Though, strictly speaking, most man-portable, shoulder-fired anti-tank systems are known colloquially as missiles." ED-E paused. "Or bazookas, by the unintelligent." While ED-E talked, I thought back to all the missile launchers I'd used in the past...

"Guided, huh? Never seen any missiles track targets..." I smiled inside my helmet, and laughed a bit. "Hell, maybe that's why it has 'miss' right there in the name, right?" I looked back out at the sandstorm, and shouldered the weapon. There didn't appear to be any ammo left, but no sense leaving it. I was trying to be stealthy for the moment, but who knows when things would get really loud. "So, speaking of names... why'd you call it 'Red Glare,' Sue? Just because of the red flames?"

"The brains made a lot of prototype weapon designs for the Army," Sue explained. "I recognize that design from the X-5 Explosive Weapons Testing Facility - it's called the Red Glare. Not really sure why..."

"The name is likely a reference to the sound generated by the weapon, Stealth_Sue," ED-E floated in close, directly over the rocket launcher in my hands. "The six tones produced correspond to six notes of 'The Star-Spangled Banner.'" There was a click as ED-E floated away, and suddenly he began to play music, accompanied by an unknown female voice singing some words: "...And the rockets' red glare..." Sure enough, the music matched the noises I'd heard moments ago. The music stopped, there was another click, and ED-E began speaking again. "The lyrics were originally written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key for the poem 'Defence of Fort M'Henry,' and made the US National Anthem on 03 MAR 1931 by congressional resolution (46 Stat. 1508, codified 36 U.S.C: 301), signed by President_Hoover."

A heavy quiet hung in the air for a few moments after that large (and entirely unnecessary) info-dump.

"It must be nice, knowing all that context about The World," Sue said, breaking the silence. "All my data is tied up in files from Big MT. Or information about being sneaky and unseen."

"I'm learning so much about history this trip," I mumbled to myself, shaking my head, and looking off into the distance. "But all I can really think about right now is that massive sandstorm getting closer. I think it's probably best if we get indoors." I pressed the button on my belt, and disappeared in a rainbow shimmer so I could search the roof. There was bound to be an entrance around here somewhere...

Tik. Tik-ik.

I dropped down through a trapdoor in the ceiling, and as soon as my feet hit the floor, my Geiger counter started going off. The inside of this place was filthy with radiation... which made a certain amount of sense. That was really annoying - here I was, trying to be stealthy, and yet this thing on my wrist was merrily clicking away without a care in the waste.

"Friend_Courier," ED-E's voice buzzed in my ear. "I will attempt to keep watch on your progress from outside."

"Friend_Courier!" I heard ED-E shout at me through the speaker in my helmet. "This way!"

I tried to look up, and found it surprisingly difficult. The wind and sand were so heavy it was like I was caught in the middle of a collapsing building. But eventually, I managed to look up and all around... nothing. I switched my eyes to nightvision. I thought it might be dark enough to work, but all it did was change the dark orange haze to a slightly less dark green haze. I switched to infrared. I couldn't see any heat signatures through the swirling grit.

Then I switched to that electromagnetic field vision... and that did the trick. Almost everything was washed out in shades of black and dark blue, but I could see something directly ahead of me that filled me with hope: a bright, shining orb of white. ED-E stood out like a spotlight, and I just focused on that orb as I crawled on my hands and knees along the broken ground, straining against the winds beating me down. A clap of thunder boomed overhead ominously.

"Quickly, Friend_Courier!" When ED-E spoke, another shape emerged out of the fuzzy blue-black surroundings: a faint outline in dark grey, almost like a half-moon. Was that a building? "In here!" The outline became more distinct, the closer I got: that was one of those Quonset huts! I scrambled forward, clutching at whatever I could, until my hands finally found purchase against metal. I pulled myself up, fumbled around blindly for a few seconds until I found the doorknob -

The door flung open, almost hitting me in the face. The bright white orb that I saw instead of ED-E rushed past my face, and into the open door; his light grew dim inside the walls. I reached out, grabbed the door handle, pulled myself in, and practically collapsed when I yanked the door closed behind me.

"ED-E!" I shouted a bit louder than was strictly necessary; my ears were still ringing from the storm, after all. "You alright?" I found the lock, and bolted the door shut. It rattled a bit, but it seemed to be relatively secure. I looked around, and there were several other grey outlines all around, which all paled in comparison to the gigantic spotlight where ED-E was.

"Yes, Friend_Courier. I am still in one piece. Are you?" I reached out and fumbled with some kind of box on the wall. A click echoed through the hut, and lines of electricity sprang to life in the walls all around. I switched my eyes back to normal, and found (now that the lights were just barely working) that we were inside a barracks of some kind. All around me, the walls were shaking from the storm, but nothing seemed to be coming loose, and no sand seemed to be finding its way inside.

"Yeah, I'm good..." I was a bit out of breath. "At least we found some shelter... think they'll follow us?" ED-E shook back and forth in midair.

"Unlikely. I detected the hostile vehicles coming to a stop seconds before we plunged into the storm. I suggest we stay in this spot until the storm passes, Friend_Courier."

"No arguments here..." Sue squeaked. I nodded.

"In that case," I reached up and pulled off my helmet; I breathed deep from the unfiltered air, and laughed a little at the enormous pile of displaced sand that fell from the helmet. "I'm gonna look around, see if there's any food. Who knows how long we'll be stuck here..."

As it happened, I was able to find some food (or a close approximation, at least) fairly quickly. At the end of one of the bunk beds was an intact shipping crate, stocked full of unopened US Army rations: MRE's. Meals-Ready-to-Eat. I'd heard about them before, but I'd never actually seen or eaten any. It was a decent enough snack for being 200 years old, and it was enough to help me swallow those Rad-X pills... but food wasn't the only thing we found in that barracks.

"Friend_Courier..." ED-E spoke up suddenly while I was halfway finished with the rubbery piece of fake meat I was trying to tear apart with my teeth. "This... this is..."

"ED-E?" I asked, getting up from my spot on the floor. "What's up?" He was hovering between two bunk beds, staring at something on the wall. I crept up behind him, and saw two things that made my eyes widen.

The first was the poster: RALPHIE the Robot's Incredible Odyssey. It was pretty worn, but it was clearly the same as the poster I'd seen hanging over the bed in The Sink. However, not all of the poster was visible, and not just because of the rips and tears at the edges. There was graffiti covering half the poster, and plenty of the wall besides: another one of Ulysses' blue flag markers.

"Oh my..." Sue said. I just backed up, and started looking around again. The last time I'd seen one of his blue markers, I'd found one of his logs. Was there another one around here?

A familiar click from ED-E broke me out of my search. He swiveled in midair to look at me. I was fully expecting to hear from Ulysses, once again... but no.

"I don't believe it!" I heard Whitley's voice shout. I let out a sigh and relaxed slightly. "Grant actually went to Colonel Autumn and got approval for her damned 'efficiency guidelines!' 'All experiments will be carried out with the test subject fully active, to reduce iteration time.' It's barbaric! I've explained this to the Colonel - just because the Eyebots don't have true AI doesn't mean they're just machines!" Whitley let out a heavy, frustrated sounding sigh. "I guess results are all that matter around here. Forget things like 'ethical procedures' or 'humane treatment.' I'm starting to have serious misgivings about the leadership around here..." There was a shuffling sound, followed by a soft sort of grunting-laugh. "Well... at least I've got you to talk to, huh ED-E?"

There was another click after Whitley stopped speaking, and ED-E slowly started to float away from the poster, near the center of the room. I shook my head, and scratched the back of my neck.

"Man... I can't believe they'd approve something like that," I said in as reassuring a voice as I could muster. "I've met enough robots in my day to know you guys are more than just machines."

"They..." ED-E refused to look at me. "They did not understand. Whitley could not... Creator_Whitley could not make them understand..." I smiled, walking over to him and placing a gloved hand on his chassis.

"He was really protective of you, wasn't he?" ED-E nodded in midair underneath my palm.

"Yes. Creator_Whitley was a very caring individual. He did everything in his power to..." ED-E trailed off. "Friend_Courier, there is something about the memory files... I am not..."

"ED-E?" I asked, hoping he could see my concerned face. He floated away, muttering to himself:

"...sealed inside the Hopeville silo..." He floated to the other end of the building, a bit unsteadily. I was about to follow him, but Sue spoke up and stopped me:

"Let him be," she said softly. "I think he needs some time to himself." I sighed, and nodded.

"Yeah..." I grunted out, turning back to the graffiti on the wall. If the last marker was any indication, then there'd be another one of Ulysses' logs somewhere around here. And since that storm was probably going to be raging for quite some time, then I was going to need something to do until it was safe to go outside.

For a relative measure of 'safe,' at least.

I found the holotape after only a few minutes of searching. It was discarded on a shelf between two bunk beds, on the opposite wall from the marker. This one was marked with a .21 after the Y-17.

"Well..." I grunted, grabbing the half-eaten MRE I'd discarded, and sat on the floor with the holotape in hand. "I suppose I should try and listen to these in order..." I reached into my duster, and pulled out the holotape I'd found earlier - the one marked with a .15 - and plugged it into my Pip Boy.

"...back again," Ulysses voice issued from my Pip Boy's speaker. I settled back and started eating while listening to the recording. "Left that crater behind. Got a few holotapes left. Ones from the medical center. The woman. She fixed the recorder. Said it wouldn't last. Repayment for me... fixing her." He snorted out a curt laugh. Or half of one at least. "She doesn't like debts. Can respect that. Payment enough just to hear someone who believes in the Brotherhood of Steel. Not Elijah. Different view. Same... madness." He grunted again. "She answered me on their philosophy. Their way of seeing the roads they walk. Dead ends... empty. As if... technology can solve anything..."

The way he spat out the word technology reminded me of something Dog... or, God, or whatever that Nightkin wanted to call himself... had told me when I was trapped in the Madre: "That's the easy explanation. The one humans use. Pre-War technology... as if it's the cause of all ills, mind and body."

"Big Empty's proof where that road leads..." Ulysses continued. "Just like The Divide... and all the roads that lead to it." The recording clicked off, and I sat there for a few minutes, trying to work through everything I'd heard as I attempted to chew through a rock-hard granola bar.

"This Ulysses person..." Sue squeaked, barely audible over my crunching. "He doesn't seem to like technology very much, does he?"

"No," I shook my head, struggling to swallow what felt like a piece of gecko skull. "No, he doesn't. I guess that comes with the territory though... if I had to guess, I'd say that he's from Caesar's Legion." Or was, at least before he took the name 'Ulysses.' "They don't like anything more advanced than a machete. They prefer to get their work done with slaves."

"... I don't like him." Sue said firmly. I laughed grimly, looking over at ED-E; he was still doing the robotic equivalent of pacing at the other end of the building.

"No arguments here..." I shoved the remainder of the granola bar in my mouth and plugged in the other holotape. It clicked, and Ulysses began speaking again.

"Emptiness here. Like... like the sands of the Great Salt Lake, echoed. The beating in the Divide sky... like the Storm Drums of the White Legs."

White Legs. I'd heard that name before. They were a raider clan in Utah. Apart from that, though... I knew less than squat. I didn't know it at the time, but that was about to change.

"Ran with them on the salt beds, at Csar's command - cut the throats of the two-headed Bear. Cut all communities off." So, I was right. He was Legion... at least, once upon a time. "Use storms. Sky. Disease. Fire. Starvation... and the violence of the ignorant to ruin all who could... might... stand against him. But the White Legs... they couldn't live on their own. Like most scavengers. So... gave them purpose. Turned their hunger into a weapon." Ulysses paused for a moment. "The walls of New Canaan... too high for Csar. Too... proud, maybe. Or maybe..." He paused again. "Maybe something there from his past. Something that needed killing... Memory of Graham."

I didn't really understand much of what he was talking about - except New Canaan. That, I'd definitely heard before. A few months back, there'd been call to join a caravan company (I can't remember the name. Jolly Trails? Happy Path? Something like that...) that was trying to set up a trade route to New Canaan: a settlement in Utah, somewhere near the ruins of Salt Lake City. It was some kind of religious... community... thing. Set up by Mormons, I think. I dunno.

"God" and I were never really on speaking terms, so I decided against joining up with that caravan. Wouldn't want to upset the locals by laughing in their faces. I learned that lesson the hard way a long time ago, but... yeah, that's another story.

"Helped them dig out Canaan supply caches, and other secrets the sands hid," Ulysses continued while I thought to myself and rummaged through the MRE bag, looking for anything else remotely edible. "Bunkers, filled with powered weapons even the Brotherhood might desire. They called these new weapons 'Storm Drums' in the firing of shells. Taught them the power in the casings... to channel the spirits into their guns." Ulysses grunted... I couldn't tell if that was a sound of disgust or exhaustion. "Me? They called me the Flag-Bearer. Glory in my hand, in the staff that still bore the weight of the Old World... just as the symbol on my back did."

Another memory flashed into my mind, from when I'd listened to his logs in the Big Empty. Christine speaking to him: "So says the man with the Old World flag on his back. America... the Commonwealth. Burned away." I looked up at the flag symbol on the wall across from me... and another puzzle piece seemed to fall in my lap.

"I learned their weapons as a means of respect," Ulysses recorded voice kept going. "And when it came their turn to pay respect to me... history came rushing back." He sighed; that was definitely exhaustion.

"Can't escape what's been done." He added, finally. "History will always be there... no matter how far you walk." And with that, the recording clicked off.