Fallout 3 - Beautiful Stranger

Chapter 1 Part 3

It was a wasteland, that was for certain. Patience (she didn't know if she could ever get used to that name, but it was all she had until she remembered her real one), couldn't believe the world she found herself in. A scorched and battered waste that had never recovered from the nuclear holocaust from two hundred years before. At least, if she believed Valrie. She had no other information that could dispute that.

In her mind, she had a vague recollection of a vibrant land. One filled with towering cities that almost touched the sky, of verdant woodlands and sweeping grasslands. Of birds circling in bright blue skies. People. So many people, flitting between those glittering cities in gleaming, fusion powered cars. Luxurious domiciles on wheels that were the homes of those people for the journeys, short and long, between place 'A' and place 'B'.

Now, here, there was nothing but cold, sterile rocks. Dirt brown bushes without a single sign of life. There were no birds in the sky. Not a single one. She realised, after some time, that there were no sounds. No chorus of bird song, that constant tinkling noise that few people had ever paid any attention to. The distant thrum of cars on freeways, another ambient sound that no longer reached her ears.

It was dead. The whole world, as far as she could see and hear, dead.

"Before we go on to Megaton, I just have to make a little stop." Valrie called over her shoulder as she picked her way over the rough, boulder strewn ground. "Got a friend over at Girdershade. She's as mad as a bag of mole rats, but she's friendly. She hasn't had a good time of it, of late, and I got something might cheer her up."

"As long as you get me to this 'Megaton' place. It's not as if I'm on a time limit." Patience found herself eager to get to the destination as soon as possible, but she couldn't think of any particular reason to rush.

"Time don't mean much in the Capital Wasteland, Honey." Valrie circled a large boulder. "There's daytime and there's nighttime. Not much need for any other kind of time."

It surprised Patience how spry Valrie seemed. Like a goat on a mountain, she skipped and jumped, picked her way, set her feet with care and moved with a surprising grace and speed, never seeming to tire.

Following Valrie around the boulder, she caught her first sight of the civilisation that once was and it laid heavy on her heart. In the distance, a clear vision of a once magnificent elevated section of freeway, now collapsed. Sections still standing almost as intact as they had always stood, other sections leaning in precarious ways against uprights and hills. Still other sections fallen to the ground in ruin. These freeways had once been a prime example of the greatness and ingenuity of the nation, now only a distorted echo of the past.

She leaned against the boulder, her head scraping against the grit of the surface. She couldn't remember the past, only vague flashes, a gut feeling of what had once been. The world of man had brought itself low. So low that she doubted it would ever reach such heights ever again. Not if the world was still like this after two hundred years.

"How did it come to this, Valrie? Why did they let it get this bad?" She almost whispered that. Unable to fight to give the question any energy.

"Told you. Nukula bombs dropped on us. Dropped on us, them, everybody." Valrie skipped back to Patience, adjusting her helmet on the way.

"Nuclear." Patience made an absentminded correction. "Nuclear bombs."

"That's what I said, nukula." Reaching in her pocket, Valrie pulled out a battered pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She lit one and took a deep draw, savouring it then releasing it through her nose. "Anyways, after Alaska was taken back from those Red Knees bastards, they didn't take kindly to it. Returned to Shiana and threw them there nukula bombs at us, so we threw ours right back at them."