Chapter 16 The Tower With Power
They stopped to say goodbye to Suzie, deliberately lingering and chatting about nothing. She seemed almost inconvenienced.
Back outside John took a deep breath of fresh air, pleased to be able to do so. He felt dissatisfied. Not just with the lack of answers, but his rudeness towards Virgil, and the way it reflected on Robco.
“I’m sorry I said what I did Robco, I should’ve bit my tongue.” John had plenty of practice.
“Don’t worry about it. Old Virgil’s had far worse said to him, and he was asking for it.” Robco stopped walking. “You know I actually think he respected you for it. Not the way most folk would react, so you feel anymore outbursts like that you count to ten or something.”
Robco pointed high up the Tower, “Let’s go see her Ladyship, then we’ll eat.” John didn’t like how high up the steel, skeletal frame the older man pointed, and did a poor job of hiding it.
As they left the market area the surroundings changed again. Getting quieter, narrower and even more chaotic in its repurposed design. Nothing repeated, no pattern.
Whatever these people could get their hands on they used to build their homes. Brick buildings patched near perfectly with different shades from long collapsed ruins. Truck trailers stacked, angled to create footbridges. Open spaces with benches and tables. People milling around, talking, sitting, smiling. No one telling them what to do, no invasive devices monitoring their every move.
John had to stop, overwhelmed by a sense of normalcy in the completely foreign environment.
“This is a beautiful place.” John said for the third time in his life.
“Sure is.” Robco ushered John to sit on a bench, watching a handful of children play on a wooden climbing frame. “Started off small, with just a few dozen families, then a few more from around. They scavenged enough bots to keep them reasonably safe. Then more to start building, trading with other places. Over a long, long time, decades, it grew to this.” The older man had a clear fondness for this place, tinged with a hint of bitterness.
He took a swig from one of the few remaining whiskey bottles stored in a big blue plastic box. One of the seven or so items he bartered vigorously for. He handed it to John, “See like all beautiful things, it’s fragile.” John took a small gulp, knowing the older man well enough by now to sense he had a point to make, and John might not like it.
“Let’s say a thousand people turn up outside the gate, hungry, afraid. These folks would take them in without question, they’re good people, but…”
“Resources.” John understood.
“At first it’d be ok, but then the food gets low. People get scared, angry, stupid.” Robco took the bottle back and drank. “All of sudden people start asking why these new folks don’t just go back where they came from. They start hating the new people, blaming them. Then things get violent, and once that starts, it doesn’t stop.” The older, wiser, man sounded like he’d seen it happen before.
“I can avoid all of that if I find the parts, ok maybe they won’t be in a Vault, they can’t be the only places with air recirc systems.” John tried to sound confident, mostly for his own benefit.
“But if you don’t you’re going to need to be flexible with what you’re willing to do.” Robco stood, leaving the blue box for his assistant. “I try to do the most good, for the most people, most of the time. Sometimes that means making hard choices, just make sure they’re choices you can live with son.”
John tried to remain calm as they rode the elevator up to see Lady Luck. The whiskey helped. As did the familiar feeling of motion and the design of the moving metal box. Yet every other floor had a direct line of sight out into the endless blue. The elevator moved slow enough that he couldn’t stop himself looking out as they climbed higher than he thought possible.
Inside looked mostly residential. Although even in this limited space there were stalls. Open areas with seating. People staring out of the windows. Even more terrifying to the man who lived underground until three days ago, balconies.
The well maintained construction elevator stopped and a figure emerged from a shadowed hallway. Black clad, masked with dark goggles supporting a fine steel mesh that hung loosely. Covered in a heavy cloak across one shoulder.
Robco straightened his posture, extending his hands along the inner railing. Making them clearly visible, silently urging John to do the same. John picked up on the not quite tension, but rather the attempt to avoid any kind of confusion.
The black clad figure entered and turned, then John saw why Robco looked tense. The advanced rifle slung across their back left no doubt, it had to be one of the Shrikes. The sniper team that enforced the law of Shadowtown with lethal precision.
John stared at the Shrike’s slung rifle. Almost welcoming the distraction of the unnerving, unearned knowledge. A relief from the thought of how ludicrously high they were. He waited. Anticipating thoughts of calibre, muzzle velocity, magazine capacity, popping into his head. Yet none came.
He knew enough to see it had a long range scope, bipod, bolt action. With a body made of some sort of hardened polymer, but beyond that nothing. It’d been highly customised. Vented barrel, knurled, lengthened bolt, a hinged stock flipped over.
Maybe that was it, he thought. A rifle so fine tuned to the black clad figure it bore little resemblance to the schematics loaded into his brain against his will. With a rattling clunk the elevator stopped. The Shrike threw open the gated doors effortlessly then left as John tried to calm the shaking in his leg.
“Seventy eighth floor everybody out.” John found Robco’s light tone misjudged, to say the least. The floor almost at the top of the old world steel skeleton had no walls. Nothing higher than the seating, tables and soil filled bags laid out for the Shrikes to shoot from.
John stumbled out of the central construction elevator. Unable to trust the concrete beneath his feet. Despite being far from the edge, it just felt wrong to be invading the endless blue. Robco stood close to John, offering him support he gladly took. Steadying himself on the older man’s shoulder as he adjusted to yet another surreal environment that seemed normal to everyone else.
They made their way through the open floor. John took slight comfort in the regular, geometric pattern of exposed thick steel columns that ran through the entire structure.
Ahead of them, mercifully, stood a solid stairwell leading up. The only thing John could see that wasn’t endless blue. Just as he felt confident enough to walk unaided, a rotating yellow light mounted on a column span into life. Robco turned, blocking John’s arm from his body. “John, it’s ok, just rela—” The unmistakable sound of a high calibre rifle cut the older man off. The muzzled bang echoing out high above the town below.
John tensed, preparing for a reaction from the jet black device. He began to accept it was a part of him, as much as the arm it was permanently attached to. Thankfully, nothing happened. Whether down to the older man’s quick thinking or his lack of any sense of threat, he couldn’t say. He just felt relieved not to be thinking about going up from the seventy eighth floor.
The only way John could face climbing even higher was to bound up the double staircase two steps at a time. Leaving the older man to catch up.
Strangely the single door at the top of the stairs looked nearly identical to a manual door in the Vault. Same round handle, same small window, even the same three quarter inch rivets. John knew there must be a hundred different places this door could have come from, but he took it as a good sign anyway.
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Robco caught up, a grin on his face. He banged hard on the metal door. The large handle rotated, and it swung open inviting them into a music filled room. “No one sees the Lady armed, lose the hardware gentlemen.” A man dressed in overalls, carrying a fully automatic combat shotgun, ordered them to disarm. John did, knowing the combat shotgun in the confined space could cut them both clean in half.
He took off his belt, then his heavy leather coat. Glad he took the time to roll up his vault-suit and cover the pipboy in the fake bandages Louisa made for him.
“What happened there?” The man in overalls pointed to the bandages.
“I broke my arm.” John pretended to wince in pain as the man roughly frisked them both. Enough that the guard didn’t investigate further. It seemed to amuse Robco, knowing the real reason. And knowing that his secret would be safe all the way up here either way.
The guard led them down a short narrow corridor and through another Vault like door. Inside the rooms were concrete. Taking up no more than a third of the floor space. Walls lined with layered carpets, bubble filled plastic sheeting, and foam with a wavy texture. Soundproofing to blot out the noise of Shrikes below.
Each room had been built around the building’s steel spine. Clean, unmarked, free for the glorious visual chaos around it. Treated with an almost reverence. The only thing treated with similar respect to the metal spine sat in alphabetically sorted, clear plastic boxes. Laid neatly out on wooden tables.
A woman with her back to them took a black circle from a paper sleeve, hung it using the hole in the centre. With a soft touch, she brushed it clean.
Behind glass in a room within a room, stood a woman. Dancing as she picked out more black circles from brightly coloured sleeves. She stopped as she saw Robco, smiling, throwing her arms out wide in surprise. She motioned towards some soft looking old chairs around a low table. Then John heard her voice through the radio as he watched her talk.
“Lady Luck is with you children, always.” She looked John up and down, and half laughed to herself. “Here’s Roy Brown with Mighty, Mighty Man.”
She burst out of the room. “Robco! What brings you all the way up here! It’s been too long baby!” However smooth her voice sounded through the radio, it paled in comparison to the real thing. Lady Luck wore leather boots. John recognised them as Louisa’s fine handiwork. Baggy, oddly patterned trousers with pockets on the thighs and a t shirt that had more colours than the entire Vault.
“My Lady.” Robco made an odd, semi serious, bowing motion and they embraced. She looked around a similar age, yet her tanned skin made it hard to tell.
“What did you bring me today?” She sauntered over to John, as he felt her analysing him with her eyes.
“This is John, a new friend of mine. We’ll get to him, but first.” Robco opened the blue plastic box and retrieved the last two ice cold Nuka Colas. “Close your eyes and put your hands out.”
“Oh honey if I had a cap for every time a man said that to me.” Amused with her quick response, she did as her friend asked. Robco held the necks of the bottles, fearing the surprise might make her drop them. He placed them in her outstretched palms without letting go. Kept cold by the blue box, they brought a yelp of delight from Lady Luck.
“My favourite!” She took the bottles and pressed them against her face. “Tell me there’s more, please!”
“Sold an old Drinking Buddy to Virgil. He and Suzie are going to kit it out as a walking vending machine, clever bastards.” Robco sounded disappointed he didn’t think of that first. “But Junior deserves the credit, not my old ass.” The mere mention of the bright boy brought a wave of feelings between them both.
“Wallace the Wizard, sweet boy.” Before she could say more Robco gently interrupted her, “Betsy, the kid needs your help, it’s important.” John got a sense of the history between the two as he remembered the older man’s joke about pretty girls being deadlier than Assaultrons.
Lady Luck’s excitement didn’t progress much further, invoking her name sent a clear message. “Go on through, I’ll sign off early, and you better remember how to mix my drink.”
Robco led them through a room of busy people. Taking messages over short range radios. Inspecting black circles with magnifying lens. Happy in their work. Too busy for anything more than a nod or a wave to the visitors.
After another short corridor, this one only secured with densely hung rows of beads instead of a Vault like door, they entered what was clearly a home.
A big double bed, a round wooden table, shelves filled with more brightly coloured sleeves. And the kind of useless old world junk that filled the Ghoulhouse. All neatly arranged along the inner concrete wall.
The outer wall had been made of uncommonly clean, floor to ceiling, plate glass. Endless blue hung like a series of repeated pictures, held at bay by thick glass. Robco walked right up to it, like he’d seen an old friend, visibly calmed. He turned to John, stopping himself from beckoning him over to take in the view. The now familiar look of pity on his older, wiser, face.
“Morning Kurt.” Robco greeted a tired looking man entering through beads on the other side of the room. Dressed in a soft white robe and drinking strong coffee. He still looked half asleep, even though the sun had nearly set.
“Robco, how it’s going man. Been too long, too long.” It took him a moment to recognise his friend. John recognised him from his voice alone, realising why Robco said morning. Mr Goodnight, Lady Luck’s partner. Judging by the slight tension, her partner on and off the radio. “How’s the Rest?”
“Good, great in fact, just got a new neighbour.” John nodded and smiled as Robco introduced him. Still too unnerved by invading the endless blue to speak. The song playing through radios everywhere finished and Lady Luck’s voice replaced it.
“Lady Luck is with you children. With me is the man with the best tin cans, Robco. And children, he brought your Lady a rare gift, from a true wizard of the wastes. Ice cold Nuka Cola with fresh whiskey to keep it company!” Her lyrical, smooth voice coming from everywhere gave John comfort.
The familiarity of stopping to listen to a disembodied voice, mixed with the new sensations of hearing truth and feeling. “Now Suzie at the G.H. is going to be bringing this civilised libation to us all, with a brand new bot named Buddy.” Her tone shifted from warm to serious and cold. “Now children, remember. You mess with a bot in the Shadow, you win a real slow trip to the top of the Tower, followed by a real fast one back down.” The picture the voice painted nearly made John throw up.
Robco began to slightly rearrange the comfortable furniture. Mr Goodnight looked on, realising why. He gently walked John to a cloth covered chair moved to face the wall. John felt better almost immediately, and not just for the reduced view. Because his reaction didn’t seem completely foreign to the robed man.
“I know it’s early for you Kurt, but the kid needs a favour, and you might want something stronger than coffee.” With an intrigued look he held out his ceramic mug and Robco topped it off. He mixed three more whiskey and colas into two finely cut, antique glasses, with a ubiquitous mug for John. Lady Luck filled the quiet again.
“As for you Mr Wizard, Lady Luck is with you. And she's sending you a near mint condition ‘Unstoppables. The Silver Shroud versus The Menacing Mechanist’! Circa twenty seventy five!” John assumed that Wallace’s reward would be a comic book from the strange words and theatrical tone in her voice.
“Now I’m going to catch up with an old friend and enjoy my cold drink. Real civilised. Goodnight here with the news soon, but till tomorrow, bingo, bango, bongo children.” Music played, with a man and woman alternating singing with a steady beat. John took a drink, trying to prepare for a difficult conversation.
“Morning Goodnight!” Lady Luck seemed amused with her wordplay, then read the room. Her partner curious, her dear old friend serious, and the man sat with his back to the view. Betrayed by the shaking in his leg.
John watched as the woman dragged a chair a few feet in front of him. Making him her sole focus in the visually cluttered room. Robco handed her a whiskey and cola and gave her a precious moment to savour the cool, sweet, smoky taste.
“Alright John, show her.” With a deep breath, John unwrapped the fake bandages to reveal the jet black pipboy. Then the sad tale of a life lived underground. Under control, under the lie that enslaved him body and mind for years. All told to a woman who lived at the top of the world.
He told her of the day they heard the snippet of music. How it shattered the lie of the Vault and crystallised hope of escape in their hearts. She seemed vindicated by it, enthused by bringing light to the darkest depths of a cold, cruel, place.
He told her of Rosie. Of his need to rescue her. To find the parts to fix the Vault, for the sake of the workers. So they could leave it in the past and live free.
“And that’s why I came here, with your radio antennae and this.” He took the wireless four pin from the hidden slot and reached to give it to Lady Luck. She diverted John to give it to Mr Goodnight. “I can scan a huge area, and if there’s anything like a Vault out there it’ll show up on my map. I can find what I need, I can get her out.” John found just the right words. “I can do it if Lady Luck is with me.”
“Child, Lady Luck has been with you all this time, she ain’t gonna leave you now.” Her voice sounded resolute, sure, filled with conviction and belief.
John got the feeling that when she referred to her listeners as children, it wasn’t just in a motherly sense. It felt more that living at the top of the world, high above it all, gave her a different perspective. A level of understanding, enlightenment, that she'd grown beyond the world below. She knew her presence, through messages and music, could connect people. Pushing the otherwise ever present, deafening silence back.
John thought about his journey. The events that led him here. The terrifying, horrifying events, that brought him not only to the top of the world but to a home. A friend, a life ready for him to take. Good luck didn’t even come close.
“I’m sorry son.” Mr Goodnight’s sombre, deep voice nearly broke, “We can’t help you.”