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jonas66 — Beneath The Torn Sky: Text
Published: 2012-05-06 09:24:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 751; Favourites: 3; Downloads: 2
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The Following are the culminating pages of my 300 page Fallout Fan Fiction, titled The Forgotten Past. I will be posting the individual parts with all of the pictures over the next few days, but I thought I'd put it into this format too. Over the next few months I will be adding the rest of the story in text, but the whole of the story is posted in my gallery, and can be found as downloadable files on the Fallout Nexus at the following link:fallout3.nexusmods.com/mods/16…
If you haven't been reading, and are reading this, the story envisions James' daughter, the Lone Wanderer, becoming over her life the Courier. It builds a narrative around some of the major events of the two games, but centers around a relationship with Ulysses, the central antagonist from Lonesome Road, that occurred during the events of Fallout 3. I had started this project right before the release of LR, and tried to make my original ideas fit into the Canon of the games as much as possible.
For those who have been watching and supporting my story as I've written it, I thank you.
-- Jonas
The Forgotten Past, Chapter Sixteen: The Road Walked Alone
Chapter Finale: Beneath The Torn Sky
Beneath The Torn Sky -- Part 1
I came into his temple, an old military building, and made my way through. There was only one way to go, towards a lift and up. I found myself in a large, cavernous hall, where the spears of the Old World, the missiles of fire, stood at attention. There was one at the end that was rising, and framed by it and the light of the torn sky stood a solitary figure, looking away, the Flag on his back facing me. The machine floated at his shoulder, turned to face me. I walked forward. He did not turn around, but I could see the small shift in his head that told me he heard my approach. I walked forward to the base of the steps leading up to the launch-pad, and then stopped, waiting. All was silent, there was no sign of a launch. It seemed that I had made it in time. So I stood calmly, and waited for him to speak. I knew that he would.
"So you've come here at last, in the end," he said softly. "I thought perhaps that I had defeated you, but it seems that you still have some strength, Courier Six."
"That isn't my name."
"Is it not? Well. . ." he shifted, his hands hovering about the controls beside him. "You've had so many names, through the years. Do you remember being called the Lone Wanderer? Do you remember being called the Angel of the Wastes?"
"I remember all of my names now, Ulysses."
He said nothing to that, just turned back to what he was doing, and flicked a few switches. "You are too late. Too late to stop me now. All I need to do now is activate it, just press this button, and we'll be committed. I can do that easily before you reach me, even if you rush me from where you stand. I remember how quick you can be."
"Except that you're not. You haven't done anything yet. Why? Are you still not committed?"
"Committed?" He laughed. "I spent years planning this. To draw you here, so I could give you my message. Make you remember this place, what you had done here. Actions, and consequences. Do you say, now, that you remember? You've heard, and now you're here. Do you understand?"
"That actions have consequences? I've seen the truth of that, over the years."
"So what is your message to me, then?"
I frowned at his back. "I. . . don't understand."
"What is your message for me, Courier Six?" he repeated brusquely, impatiently. "We are both Couriers. We bring packages, and we bring messages. That's what we do. And we do what we do because of who we are, what calls us and drives us. I brought you here to give you a message, and you paid the fee by bringing me a package I needed. But I kept drawing you forward because I want to know what message you carry. Now that you've seen this place, and remembered what you've done, what do you say? What is your message to me?"
He turned then slowly to face me, his flag shifting away, but when I gained sight of his face I fell still, and my hands slid, almost instinctive, to touch on the blade at my hip. I remembered everything, now, but this. . . this was not the man I remembered.
I remembered a tall man, who seemed taller. Greater. He had stood proudly, sure and steady, always ready to do the next thing that had to be done. The fire in his eyes had been of purpose, and drive. Now. . . now I saw a man who was tall, but seemed smaller. Diminished. His cheeks were hollowed and gaunt, and he looked very old, as if eaten away. The fire in his eyes was of obsession, and anger, and bitter, hopeless despair. Bloodshot and ancient, withered and broken, with nothing left on the surface but madness, and hate. There was no purpose there, not really, only the vestiges of rage. He had promised death to so many people. He had taken so many lives, in our past, with my help. He had led me here and hurt me so badly, but as I stared at this face, and I looked into his bitter, haunted eyes, I didn't find anger, or hurt anymore. I had loved him once, and now I could feel only pity, mixed with fear at what he might do in his rage.
"Ulysses," I said softly, and sadly, "what has happened to you?"
"What happened to me?" he responded, and his voice held a smoldering burn, the same as had been carried through the machine. But the machine had not been able to convey the depths of the brokenness there, and I heard it here, now. The voice of one who'd died inside but still lived, the rotting depths of a black pit of hopelessness. "The same thing that happened to this place, you could say. You happened to me, as you happened to this place. I had hope, once, a long time ago, I had inspiration. A reason for me to keep living, to see. And then. . . you took that away from me. Not only once, but over and over again. There is no greater bitterness than being given hope and having it taken away, much better to never have hope in the first place. I have no hope left; you destroyed all of it, as utterly as you brought ruin here."
"And now you feel yourself justified, bringing ruin elsewhere in your anger? Answering death with death?"
"Anger?" he mused softly. "Is that what this is about? No, I do not believe that it is. No. This is inspiration, the inspiration that you gave me, so long ago. I've been planning this day for many years now, and even if I started out of anger, it has been a long time for it to cool. What's left behind is the inspiration that you gave me, that is all."
"Inspiration?" I asked. "What do you mean?"
"The effect a single individual, with power, can have on history. Nothing so great as that, if you can recognize it in time. Caesar, Ashur, singular men that have shaped so much of our history. Caesar in Arizona and New Mexico, his drive –his purpose-- creating something much larger than him. Ashur, his ways creating the foundations for something larger than a simple community of weak, scared people, waiting for a stronger force to usurp them. Consider Caesar's effect: without him there would be no Legion. Without the Legion there would have been no strife, just the Bear, foolishly trying to expand past its strength. So many shifting, tenuous threads, drawn from the ones that lived rather than died, that won rather than failed.
I tried to be one of those men with purpose, but I failed. It was not for me. But you, one singular person, you had your effect as well, didn't you? You had purpose once, a desire to build something great. We were close once, together, and you walked away. You were close here, close to realizing my dream, and you never even knew. You never knew how close you had come. To you, and your fear, it was only a place where you could be safe, and be loved. But for me, in the shadows, I saw you making something big, something NEW. A place apart from the Bear and the Bull, that could start over again. I watched you build this place, and then. . ." he sneered, more a grimace, "then, I watched you destroy it. In your carelessness. One person, who brought life and then gave death to something greater than the Bear or the Bull. A fledgling nation. And the effects went so far, so much farther than you could ever see."
"You never saw with your eyes, Courier Six, you never looked around to see what the world really was. Never looked to see the effect you could have on it, either. That was my curse, to see you so unaware. To see you do things unknowing where I had sought with purpose and failed for so long. Even when you saw what you'd done, you still knew so little. Had so little notion of how deep the effect would go. My brothers lost at the Battle of the Dam, but were allowed to linger in this place, rather than retreat back into the East. The Bear could not defeat them, could not drive them back, because of what happened in this place. They had sent a large force here, and lost them all, their men, and a link in their supply lines. You made them weak, by destroying this place, and the Bull was allowed to remain, to gain strength. Gain its strength from obsession, purpose lost. Driven by the lust for the Dam, and anger at the Bear, a foe that had defeated it. You and your actions, so small, all that effect. Thas what I learned from you. Now," he said softly, turning away, "I try with purpose what you did in your ignorance. How great an effect do you think that MY actions will have, Courier Six?"
"That isn't my name," I said again. "You remember my name, why can't you use it?"
"But the other fits you so well," he laughed. "The same as it did me. It is what we are, and it was our trade, even if we weren't always called that. Couriers walk long roads alone, and bring things to other people, for them to use. Whatever they need. Food, guns, spears or bombs, whatever's required. Whatever is needed. If we have to, we carry nations on our back, to where they can be used the best. But always we deliver them to other people to use, and walk away. My role in this day will be forgotten, no one will know the Courier that delivered this package, no more than they knew that you had done so before. But the effect will be remembered regardless."
"This is madness," I said. "What I did here, I have paid for, but I didn't do it on purpose. That doesn't change anything for the people I killed, but it is still the truth. I would not have chosen it -- you have to know that, if you remember anything. The people here did not deserve to die. No more than the people you now threaten with death."
"The Bear, not deserve death?" he remarked. "They brought their own death to this place, even if they had you deliver it for them. The same as it will be in the West, in their homes. Hanging on to the scraps of a dead legacy, seeking the answers to Old World questions, when they should know now that Old World answers bring death. Trying to recreate what was destroyed already. It was only a matter of time. Here, or on the Long 15. At Shady Sands, or Navarro. Or at the Mojave, in the City of Light. You saw, there, yourself. How pathetically they failed at control. How they tried and failed to thrive, even when they had a semi-willing host to feed off of. It will not change for them! In the end, they will find a way to do it again. Another package to deliver. Another people they fail to subdue. Would you not say that it's better to end them, now, before they try again on their own? You should be grateful to me. I am ridding you of an inevitable threat, to you and your precious Mojave. There are, now, too many flags on the plains. Yours and the Bear, and the Bull. You defeated both of them, once, but I do not believe that you'll be so lucky again. Both will come back, both will again be a threat. So I will remove one of the flags, and then there will just be yours and the Bull. Your way, against mine; your people, against my brothers, with no more interference from the West. Then we will see. Let strength decide it for all, which way is better."
"No," I said angrily, "this isn't my way. You'll prove Nothing in doing this, other than how easy it is to kill. It was Always too easy for you. The Bear was my enemy, a long time ago, but I will not fight against it this way! It is wrong! All you can ever think about is the Flags! But with every Flag that you see what I see is all of the people, who only want to be safe, and live. My way, the Mojave? No, you're wrong. All I did was protect them, fight for them, and set things in motion to give them their own strength, and the safety to find their own way for themselves. The flag of the Mojave does not belong to me. It is not mine, no more than the people within it. You never did understand."
There was something, there, in his eyes, some flicker just then, and I pressed the opportunity. "How much do You remember, Ulysses? I asked you that once in my pain, without understanding, but now I remember everything, and I ask you again. How much do you remember? Whether I remembered or not, I learned this lesson a long time ago, during the War that we fought for causes we did not understand. I remember believing that I was righteous, once. I had a cause that I would sacrifice anything, anyone for. In the end, it meant nothing. It brought nothing but hate and vengeance, and it hurt the people I loved. It never even defeated what we were fighting against, and in the end I was taking the lives of the people I was trying to save. Because I thought I was righteous, and had a cause that gave me license to act without consideration. I won't make the choice of life or death for so many. We are only two people, neither of us have the right to make that choice."
We stared at each other for a very long moment, and again there was that flicker. "So, the two of us, then?" he asked softly. "Then what is your answer? What is your message to me, now that you know all of this, and remember all that you've done?"
"What can I say, Ulysses? I know what I did, and I remember what we did, together. I cannot go back, and I cannot change anything. The only thing that I can do is move forward, and learn from my mistakes, and try to do better. I failed in this place. But in the Mojave, and Big Mountain, you've seen what is there. Something that I can help make strong, and help build again. What more can you ask of me?"
We stood silently, facing each other. I looked into his eyes, and for a short space -- for the tiniest fraction of time -- it seemed that there was a crack in the façade of their surface, and I saw, underneath, seas of doubt gnawing below. But then they flamed over with rage.
"The Mojave, Big Mountain," he ground out, "Securitrons, robot armies, old tools and technologies! MACHINES!" he barked, growing in fury, "Even after everything you've seen in this place, you still put your trust in MACHINES?! You have learned NOTHING!" He stood, blazing hate, and he roared: "THEN LEARN, NOW, COURIER SIX! I WILL TEACH YOU THE WAY OF MACHINES!!"
His fist flashed out, crushing down on the controls next to him, and everything in the hangar started to move.
Beneath The Torn Sky -- Part 2
The effect was immediate. The floor under our feet started to thrum, and there was a hum as disused machinery whirred into reluctant life. A digital readout, near the missile behind us, flashed 10:00, and then started, second by second, to count down.
"What are you DOING?!" I yelled, aghast and astounded. His gathering rage and spontaneous decision, at that seeming moment of weakness, had caught me completely off-guard.
"I am committing our course, Courier Six!" he boomed back at me. "Setting the machines into motion, so you can understand what they are! You refuse to understand, so I'll show you! This is the way of machines. They can only do what they're told. Just press a button, just deliver a package, and you set things into motion that you cannot undo. The only thing that they can bring then is death!"
"No!" I cut back, "this is madness! You are the one causing this, Ulysses, not these machines! This is your choice! You cannot do this! End it, stop this insanity!"
"I cannot!" he laughed wildly, his eyes blazing with rage and with madness. "It took me six months to tell these machines what to do, and now that it's set into motion, there is no time to take it back. We are committed, Courier Six! Just one small action and this is the end result! Do you now understand? Things cannot be taken back once they're set into motion. You delivered a package here in your ignorance, and the result was inevitable death! I direct a course, and then press a button, and it's done, no taking it back! These are machines!" he boomed out, waving his arm at the missile. "They can only do what we tell them to do, or what others before have told them to do! They do not care about the things that we care about; they only can fulfill their instructions, complete the purpose for which they are built! The machine that I had you bring to me here, it made you bring it back here on your own, made you ready, and it did it because I told it to do so! That was its purpose, given to you to bring it back to this place, and cause death! Do you believe that you can remake Big Mountain, right the wrongs that were created in that place? You are a FOOL! You can do nothing but turn something on, turn something else off. But that doesn't change its nature or purpose, and that is the only thing there is to a machine! Can you make a machine care like a man, love like a man?! You CANNOT! All you can do is harness its power, understanding what it is and does to bring death, and direct its oncoming destruction towards a target that you choose it to go towards!"
He paused, and then he smiled, a sneering, mad grin that made the hair on my arms stand up. "You can direct the course of its death. That is all you can do. Therein lies your only true choice."
"What do you mean?" I was afraid, afraid of what he was going to say.
"I am offering you a choice. I set this in motion, but it is you who decides where the death carries. I choose the Bear because I've fought the Bear, because the Bear is the West, and the mistakes of the Old World that's dead. But I left you a choice, as part of my final message to you, so you can understand. Understand that there is no neutrality in life, no standing by. Only taking strength where you find it, and beating down threats that would stand in your way. I've chosen the Bear, but if you don't like my choice, then you are free to choose another course. Just press the lever over there," he nodded towards it, "and it will be done. My fee to hear the message you carried for me."
"What other course?" I asked softly, but I knew what he would say before he did, and my soul shrank from the thought of it.
"You can turn it on the Bull, on my brothers. You believe that the Way of the Bull is wrong? That I am wrong? Then destroy it. One rocket will go to Flagstaff, the Capital, and the other to Dry Wells, where the Legion holds their main military camp in Arizona. The place that I, Ulysses, was born, where I learned to be what I am. If you believe I am wrong, if you believe that the Way of the Bull is in error, then your choice should be clear, should it not?"
"No," I said sharply, and his eyes widened slightly, "that is an impossible choice, and I refuse to make it for you. I will not play your game, Ulysses. You must stop this, now, before it's too late."
"It's already too late," he laughed.
"Don't lie to me, Ulysses, even you couldn't be that mad! Shut it all down!"
"I cannot," he barked back, and there was that flicker again. "You say that this is an impossible choice? To not take the lives of an army of slavers and slaves, who come bearing war? An army of man that takes women and breaks them, that destroys all that stands in its way? You would not destroy them?"
"Not like this!" I said sharply, panicked at the decreasing seconds, time slipping away. "The Bull is no longer a threat!"
"You are a fool," he sneered back. "You have defeated them once, but you did not destroy them. You allowed so many to live at the Dam. They live, and still gather strength, and they will return. Inculta has taken control, I heard that myself, and he will not remain idly by. He had a vision, a vision that Caesar had gave him, that I learned from him, and he believes! He believes, and he will move forward himself. If you do not take the power I've offered, if you do not use the power to remove the threats lining against you, then you will FALL! That will be the end of what you hope to build. There is only strength in this world, that is the way that it is, and you are a fool not to see that, and use what is left to your hands!"
"No, Ulysses," despite my fear at the decreasing time, I could still not keep a note of sadness from my voice. "You never did understand. I am not like you, in that way I never was. All you see in this world is Flags, and the strength of those Flags. But I told you: where you see flags I see the people that stand under them, and even under the Flag of the Bull there are innocents. But you never believed in the concept of innocence, and so you can't understand me. I had a friend, once, who told me that he had respected the Bull. I've hated the things that the Bull has done, the same as the Bear, but even the Bull had a purpose, and I would not end it like this, death to what is not a threat to me now. Please, you must stop this. I cannot make this choice. You have no right to ask this of me. Who are you, who think that you have a right to do so?"
We stared at each other, and it seemed that the flames in his eyes again flickered sharply, his madness cooling for a moment. Again I saw that crack in his façade, saw the doubt underneath, but he shook his head.
"I cannot take it back. You must choose. Or choose to do nothing, and let my choice rule. That is the way of the world. Fight, control, or be broken. There is no other way. Choose, Courier Six."
"That isn't my name." I said sharply, bitterly. "You cannot even say my name, as you try to force me to choose which people die and which live. How much do you remember, Ulysses? I remember everything now. How much do you remember? Do you remember what happened at Tenpenny Tower? I brought you the key, but you were the one who used it, alone. Do you remember?"
"I remember that you went there after you turned your back on me!" he snarled, whirling away. "After you turned your back on our work! I remember that you crushed my hope, then, for the first time. We were so close, so close to realizing something, and you walked away from it all!"
"I had no choice," I said sadly. "The path we were going down was not one I could take at that time, and I was too young to realize it. Nothing, in the end, but death and vengeance, because of our arrogance, because our motivations were too confused. I had no choice but to walk away. And you followed me willingly enough."
"Of course I followed you!" he grated. "I had no choice. I l-. . . I needed you! You were my inspiration, you were the key that enabled me to walk the path towards something great. I couldn't do it without you. And you left it, left me! No commitment, running away. The same as this place. You always ran away from those that needed you!"
"I know," I said simply, and again his eyes widened, jerking back to my own, and again I thought I saw doubt, raging below. "I know what I did, and I'm sorry for it. I was wrong. I've made many mistakes. But I ask you, again, how much you remember, because. . . because it feels like we are still there, in that tower. Some part of me, I think, never left this Valley after it was destroyed. Some part of me always stayed in this place. But you? I think that some part of you never left Tenpenny Tower, Ulysses. Because this is the same, exactly the same as that place. You cover your rage with pretty words and talk of great purpose, but I don't see it in your eyes, only on your tongue, which can lie. But on you I don't see purpose, not here. I see only rage, the same as back then. You promise to bring death to so many people, and you say that there is meaning in it, but you're wrong. I see only anger, and hatred, towards me. The same as back then. What happened is between me and you, both then and now, and we can decide it. There is no need to destroy all of these people."
"I cannot," he said again," it is too late. It is too late for you to run from your responsibility, and there is no time for you to delay in indecision," his voice again held a touch of contempt, but it no longer fooled me. There was still the doubt underneath, buried under his false contempt, and under his rage, it was leaking through. "This is your harvest, and now it is time for you to reap it. You must make your decision, Courier Six!"
"That IS NOT MY NAME!" I roared back at him, and his eyes widened, his back shocked straight. My name is not Courier Six! My name is not the Lone Wanderer. I am Kristina Calderon -- that is my name! It is who I am, who I always have been, and this IS NOT MY WAY! You try to force this decision on me with no purpose, nothing but anger, and I cannot make this choice! It is not the machines that do this, and it is not me! It is YOU who does this, who demand that this is the way it should be, only you! So who are you, Ulysses? What is YOUR name? You know who I am, and you know my name, but I remember! The first night that we met, in the Pitt, you told me that Ulysses WASN'T your name! You said that you had forgotten your name, is that true? Who are you, Ulysses -- who hides behind titles, who claims doesn't even remember his name – who are you to decide the fate of so many? What is your name, Ulysses? What is your name, Flagbearer? What is your name, COURIER FIVE?"
In the wake of my anger he stared back at me, silent, his eyes widened, and despite the time ticking away, despite the screaming, pressing need for haste, I did not dare break the silence. This once, it seemed, I had struck true. The winds of my anger seemed to have doused the flames his mind, and in his eyes, for the first time, I saw nothing of hatred and rage. He looked at me and in his eyes, this once, I saw nothing but doubt, tinged with dismay. He looked, for the first time, lost and alone, broken by hope and the destruction of hope. I said nothing, and waited.
"My name. . . was Yang Na Thui," he said softly, at last. "'He who sees with his mind.'" His voice held a slightly disbelieving quality, like one who has found, tucked away, something long thought lost. "But that boy died a long time ago. At the age of seventeen, at Dry Wells. He stood, and the bodies of the warriors of his tribe, men he had known and admired, hung from crosses. The final reward from the Bull, for those who had, in the end, resisted its dictates. He stood, and a man named Vulpes Inculta approached him, and that boy was given a choice. To see with his mind, which could deceive him, or to choose to see with his eyes, the way the world truly was." He turned away, back towards the flag.
"He isn't dead, Ulysses. He is you. What we were never truly dies; that was your message for me. See again with your mind, please. Find that again. Our eyes can deceive us as well, but our minds should stay true, if we know ourselves. See with your mind, Ulysses. This is wrong, and it isn't the way. Please, see, and end this. Stop this madness while there is still time."
He looked back at me, and it seemed what was left in his eyes seemed to crack, his shoulders slumped slightly. "I. . . cannot," he said finally, and now I heard nothing but bitterness. "I did not lie to you. It took me too long to tell the missiles what to do, there is not enough time to take it back. You must choose." His eyes, and the tone in his voice, finally convinced me, and I felt my heart sink, my soul shrink in dismay. There was in him no more fight or resistance. No contempt, or cutting anger. He was telling the truth.
I turned away from him, jaw clenched tightly. The switch stood in front of me, demanding of me a choice. To choose who and where to bring death, to the Bear or the Bull, and I had to do something, what I could. The seconds slipped away, but I could not make myself move. I could not find it in me to do anything yet. I did not wish to act, because I knew that there wasn't, really, a choice to be made. The choice as it was had been made a long time ago, and now there was nothing left but to act on it. I knew that I would, in the end, choose the Bull. I had hated the Bear, perhaps because of how similar they were to myself, but the Bull, and the Way of the Bull, I had always rejected. They had always been my antithesis, my enemy, and the flaws of the Bear were, to me, less repugnant, less dangerous. But it still wasn't right, and there was no justice to be found in this place. I would bring death to the Bull not as a means of protecting myself from their threat, or as judgment against their actions, or even revenge against the damage they'd caused. It would, in the end, be only one person's choice, directing power where they felt it would do the more preferable damage. I would do it, and I would live on as I had to, but there was nothing for me but bitterness, and my eyes squeezed shut tightly, as I searched for any way, any possible method, of finding another path. "I cannot make this choice," I said bitterly, words escaping involuntarily from my lips, as I tried to force my hands to do what had to be done.
He said nothing further, but I was answered. From behind me, clear above the rising sounds of the engines, I heard a soft, sad, electronic sound.
Beneath The Torn Sky -- Part 3
The two of us turned together, to face the other -- the third point in our triangle -- that had floated, silent and forgotten, behind us all of this time. The machine, that had been the key. The machine that had brought death to this place before. Ed-E, my companion for so long. My. . . my friend. I had said once that I only understood his simplest thoughts, and this was both simple, and so very complex. But he had floated at my shoulder, my companion, for so many long miles. He had been by my head as I lay on my pad, talking to me in his way, through so many hours of the divide between waking and sleep, and this, the word he now spoke, I understood. The melancholy tone, the whisper of determination, it all came to me as clear as if he had spoken to me with my own native tongue. Just that one sound, but I knew. I knew what he was offering to do.
And I knew, as well, the price he would pay for doing so.
I moved to stand in front of him, and I brought up my hand, softly caressing his hard, metallic shell, feeling the hum of electronic life held inside it. "Are you sure?" I asked him softly, as he faced me. Another soft sound, still sad, but the determination, now, was stronger. He sounded. . . brave. Brave and determined. His round, floating form became prisms in my eyes as tears sprang inside them, but I smiled at him, if with trembling lips. "Thank you," I said at last. I stood up, and kissed him on his front screen. I hoped that he could feel it, even being a machine. "Thank you."
He hooted softly, carrying friendship, and I stood aside and let him float by me, towards the panel. I looked over at Ulysses, but he stood silently, watching, his face partially hidden in shadows. I watched Ed-E approach the controls, watched him prepare, and then begin. I watched as the connection was made, and as the life in his body, the veins of electronic light, connected and passed into the machines that dwelt here, his brothers. He had brought death before, unwillingly, and he had been sorry, he had told me that once. Now, he let go of the life that was his, to enable it to go on in so many people, who would never know what he had done for them. The light passed from him into the machines and vanished, and then it was done. The timers stopped, the hum of the engines reversed and wound down to silence, and his cold, metallic shell fell to the floor with a crash and lay still, empty and lifeless. He was gone, but he had succeeded. He had stopped the launch.
In its wake I looked over at Ulysses, wondering what he might do. But he was silent for a long time, gazing at the remains of my companion, his ears cocked slightly, as if listening to a voice only he could hear.
"Even the machine," he said softly, at last. "Even the machine." He straightened, looking at the flag that hung beside us, and did not look at me while he spoke. "You are . . . a remarkable woman, Kristina Calderon. You have, once again, defeated me utterly. There is . . . a great power to you. "
"I do what I must," I said simply.
"So few can say that for truth. So very few." There was a silence between us then.
I stirred at last. "What comes now, Ulysses? What will you do?" He did not respond, his eyes on the Flag, his head still cocked as if listening for something. I had loved him once, and I still felt pity for him in this place, alone. "Will you. . . will you leave this place, now? There is nothing here but death anymore. There is no reason for you to stay. You could. . . come with me, if you want. There was a time, I remember, where we gave to each other, rather than just taking away. There have been a lot of roads between then and now, but I'd not have you stay here alone. We could use your help, your strength, if you'd offer it. You could come back with me, to Big Mountain. There could be a home there for you."
He did not turn around, but shook his head slowly. "I wish it were so simple," he said.
I frowned, and started to ask him what he meant, but then I finally heard it as well. A gathering noise, that was only made soft by distance, a rolling roar like the crashing of many voices, and now that I could hear it, I could hear that it was increasing.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Marked Men," he said. "I left the door open, unlocked, when you passed inside. They are coming. The demons of rage, nothing left to them but the craving to destroy the living they hate. They feared me for so long, and did not penetrate my defenses, but with you there are two of us, and I guess that is enough. Perhaps the noise of the engines kept them at bay until now. But they're coming. They will be here soon -- they've already cut off the only escape. It was my plan all along, to finish what I was doing here and then die at their hands, or as insurance that you would not escape, if you managed to cut me down." He laughed shortly, ruefully. "I didn't. . . . I didn't expect you to change my mind."
"How many are there?" I asked.
"Many," he said simply. "More than either of us alone could handle. I had not meant for you to survive. Armed with clubs and old blades, like the others, but they will not stop. They will not let you by alive. But we are neither one of us alone, at the moment. There are two of us here, and two of us, perhaps that would be enough. You have defeated me utterly and you have spared me from death. Twice now in our lives, when once was enough. By . . . by the laws of my tribe I am indebted to you, and must see you safe. Two can dance so much better than one, and I remember something, now. I had forgotten." His hand slid under his coat and, with the faint rasp of metal, slowly drew forth a curved sword. It caught the light of the torn sky on its bright, silver blade. I stared at it, and he said: "I remember that we used to dance, together. I remember that we danced . . . well."
"That is a beautiful sword, Ulysses, I've never seen one like it before. Where did you find it?"
He looked down at it, and I saw his lips quirk slightly, in mysterious amusement. "You wouldn't believe me, even if I told you." He flicked it twice, experimentally, cutting the air. Then he turned and, for the first time, faced me again. He smiled. "Do you remember the steps to our dance, Kristina Calderon?"
I looked back at him, and smiled as well, unhooking my blade from my hip. The flame from its blade cast a warm light on us both. The ravenous sounds of the Marked Men grew louder, but I smiled, and could not give them a mind. Because, finally, in his eyes, I saw the sight I remembered. He stood now, again, a tall man that seemed taller, and the flames in his eyes were again from purpose, and drive. He stood again calm and proud, his mind clean, waiting to do the next thing that had to be done. The man I had known, so long ago, who had set me on a path of purpose and vision. The man I had met and who had brought, for a time, light and warmth before we'd brought darkness to each other. The first man who had taken my heart, and who had taught me to dance in the light, and in the shadows as well. Here, at the end, he had finally come back to me.
"I remember, Ulysses."
The doors break open, and the flood of hatred flows through, red faces snarling and gibbering with rage. But I look back at the man I had loved, and I smile. I let it all flow away, except the thrill of the dance, and the need of the moment, and that beneath the torn sky I stand with the man that I had loved, together.
Beneath the torn sky, and a dead nation's flag, my first love and I start our dance.
We dance and, together, we are beautiful.
Flowing Light
A deep breath, we begin.
The river of rage flows towards us, unheeded, while we look at each other and our minds meld as one. A soft whisper of breath on our lips and we stand, muscles loosening minds flowing together. A slight shift in our shoulders as we face each other in unity, almost a bow as we prepare, our blades ready and eager to carry us forward.
And then, we dance.
Knees shifting back twisting shoulders turning we move, the river flowing towards us and around us, flowing light. He moves left I move right our shoulders shifting away, blades spinning light flickering sky turning, flowing light. Together we move our feet stepping and turning, bodies spinning and whirling and dancing, flowing light. The first of them fall to our blades and we pass, like liquid curling and spinning, waves cresting, flowing light. The dance we have done a thousand times now my lover and I move together as one and we step gracefully through no sound but a whisper and we're gone, flowing past, flowing motion, flowing light. He moves right I move left, our hips touching then turning, backs sliding then spinning and we move to the next, arms connected, minds touching, blades spinning and turning, and more of the dead finally stop moving, flowing light.
Faster we spin, and then faster yet faster, blades flicking and gliding and cutting, flowing light. He moves back I move forward he turns I turn with him, he leads and I follow and we dance, flowing light. I take the lead and he slips past my shoulder spinning, turning slipping and cutting, gliding, and slicing through, flowing light. The ones not yet fallen aren't fleeing their rage roaring faces burning as they come to face with our blades but we spin and slip past them, blades cutting and crashing, and they fall in their paths, life leaving, flowing light. Twisting and turning, deflecting and dodging, shifting and striking and stabbing we spin, spin into their ranks and spin back out again, him left and then right, me right and then left, turning together as one and cutting through, flowing light.
But then. . . a misstep, where we both try to lead, it has been so long since we've danced. As he passes me by my shoulder strikes against his, and my legs slip, my arms twitch, and I stumble, no flow. The force of the strike in my arm, to my hand, frees the blade from my grasp and it falls to the floor, a clang and a clatter , it breaks, quenched by darkness, light gone. Time slows to nothing and I see him move, his blade taking one and then turning, looking. He sees, and then I see as well.
There is only one left, only one that still walks. But he bears not a blade or a club, or a lance. His red, ripped hands hold a blaster. I slowly stumble as my feet hit the floor, and I am too far away from him, my blade gone, my rifle still on the floor. The bore of the gun fixes on me, and I stare down into it. My hand slips across the pistol at my hip, and then misses its grip. I start to fall, and there is, now, nothing that I can do.
I had faced death before, seen it coming. At Project Purity I had gone to it willingly, finishing the work of my father. At Goodsprings I had gone to it laughingly, finally freed from the pain of the living. At the Dam I had gone to it determinedly, using up the last of my strength to protect the people of the Mojave. But now. . . now all I could feel was regret, and sadness. My daughter would wait for me to come home, and she would wait in vain.
"Elise," I thought to the darkness, hoping that she would, somehow, hear my words. "Elise, I'm so sorry. Live, Elise, live on after me. Live on, and live well.
"Forgive me, Elise."
The Flagbearer's Choice
Many things happened at once.
So clearly and slowly time flowed as I fell, and I could see everything. I saw the bestial smile light up the face of the demon, as he saw that he had me. I saw his finger start to tighten on the trigger, and in my mind I felt the shot as the blaster discharged. And then I was struck, hard, from the side, and sent flying. I heard a loud crack, saw a bright flash from the corner of my eye, and heard a howl of noise and a thudding blow. Then I struck the ground hard on my shoulder and side, driving the breath from me, sending light and stars flooding my vision. As fast as I could I rolled, my numb fingers scrabbling at the holster on my leg, finally finding my pistol and freeing it, and I slid to a seating position, gun coming up, but then I was still. I saw the last Marked Man slump over backwards, mouth in a frozen snarl of death. The long, silver sword protruded from both its front and its back, where he had thrown it in his last effort while knocking me away. And I saw him on his knees, his hand clutching his chest, and as I came up to my feet he started to fall.
I caught him in my arms just before he hit the ground, and his weight pulled me down to my knees, his head rolling and his eyes, for that moment, vacant and weak. I set him on my legs and held him up, pulled open his shirt to see. . . and then stopped, my eyes wincing closed reflexively. I opened them again, after a moment, and looked up to see him looking back at me, calmly. There was no need to say what was caught on my tongue. We were both warriors, him and I, and we both knew, with that one glance, knowing where we were, that there was nothing that could aid him. It was too late, and there was nothing that either of us could do now. Nothing except to try and make our peace with each other. But I could think of nothing to say.
"This was my choice, Kristina Calderon," he said at last. "I saw you come to this place, and I saw you take all the blades that I cut you with, here, and still you moved forward. You faced me, and the things here, with a will to live. I saw that you had something to live for, even as I tried to make you run away from it, again. You did not, too strong for me. Something keeping you going, making you strong. Something to come back to. I've had nothing for so long, but you still had something to come back to."
"Yes," I said. It wasn't a question, but I answered it like one. "I have a life and a daughter, a family. They're waiting for me to come back to them." He nodded.
"I. . . I told you two lies in our lives, both today," he said. "One was the machine, to bring you here. You know that lie. But I told you one other. " he coughed, and then laughed, "I suppose that it was a lie more to myself, but I'd take it back, now."
"What is it?"
"I told you that I followed you to Tenpenny Tower because I needed you, because you were my inspiration. But that wasn't true, and I know it now, even if I couldn't understand it. I followed you, then, because I loved you."
I smiled softly. Neither of us had ever said it before to the other. "I know, you fool," I stroked the side of his face. "And I loved you."
"Will you remember that, then? It was so long ago, and there's been so much pain and hatred since then. I hurt you very badly, I feel, but if I had a request it was that you remember that now. Remember that there was a time that we had something more for us than just bitterness and hate."
"Whatever we've done is now done. You hurt me, but perhaps you had a purpose in that which you couldn't remember. You gave me what I needed to know, and you delivered me back to myself. You saved both my mind, and now my life, Ulysses. I will remember that. What we did, before, was my fault as much as your own, and it's done, but I never hated you, and you were always there, in my mind. Even when I remembered nothing else, I remembered you, Flagbearer. You were my guide, and without you I would have been lost, a long time ago. I must thank you, Ulysses, I can give that along with my love. Thank you for being my guide back to myself."
His eyes flickered and slipped close, and his face seemed to relax, and he was quiet for a moment. I thought that perhaps he had slipped away, but he stirred again under my hands, and opened his eyes.
"It's strange," he said softly, "I've given death to so many people, and I feel it now coming myself and I wonder if all of the others were worth it. We brought death, together, to many people. I always thought that it happened with purpose, but I. . . I regret some of them, now. I was wrong at Tenpenny Tower. I knew that once, and forgot it again, but I remember. I wonder how many times that was true."
"We both did things that I think we'd take back," I said. "Neither of us can. The pain of the things that I'd done drove me away from myself completely. It may have been the only thing left for me, but it was still the wrong thing to do. I was young, and I didn't understand. The only thing any of us can do is move forward, and if we make mistakes we can learn from them. I dishonored those people I'd hurt by forgetting them, and I won't do that again. Down there, in the Divide, I saw in front of me every person I'd killed, and the faces of my friends still alive, and I knew that the only thing I could do for them was to get up, and remember, and move forward. I am no more innocent than you, but I can carry the burden of my guilt for the people I've killed, and the people who are still left alive. The only other choice is to die, and then all that pain, all that death that we caused, it would all be meaningless. Just things that happened. It's all the past, but it led us to this place, and from where
we are the only choice that we have is which way to move forward."
He laughed, a weak sound. "Your choice is more difficult than mine, then. There's only one road left for me to walk, now."
I brushed the braids out of his eyes, and leaned forward and kissed his forehead gently. "You can still choose how you go down that road. Bent, with regret, or proudly, knowing yourself."
"Yes," he said faintly, "I suppose. . . that is true. . . ." his body relaxed in my arms, and I thought again that he had gone, but then, one last time, he opened his eyes, and I leaned forward to hear him.
"Kristina Calderon," he whispered, "if all you can do is move forward, and learn, then do better than me. Do better than you did here. Do better than we did together. If you make something, you must project it. From the Bear and the Bull, the other threats that are out there as well. For all the people we've hurt, all the lives that we ended, make them worth it. Build something, and protect it. Make something great."
"I'll try," I whispered, and he smiled. A single tear slid from my eye, and down the bridge of my nose, then fell to splash on his face, and as it struck him he slipped away. The great fires in his eyes faded and they slid slowly closed, and with a sigh he drifted away. Still at last, with a small, peaceful smile remaining on his face. He was gone, and again I was alone.
"I'll try," I whispered again to the darkness.
The Last Road Leads Home
I carried his still form out of his temple, and across the long, lonesome road away from the Divide. The Marked Men and Tunnelers hid from me and let me pass, as if recognizing some right of passage. Or perhaps it was just fear. ED-E – faithful companion, who had given his life for so many – I left him to lie where he'd fallen, among the machines that were his brothers. But at the topmost ridge, where I had first seen the Divide and felt his presence again, I put him down, and there I dug him his grave. I laid him there to rest, in solitary, eternal vigilance over the land he had stood in testament to -- the only one, for so many long years, that remembered what had happened to this place, and why. The Flagbearer, they had called him, and on his grave I nailed the brand I had given him -- so long ago, so far away it had been – to let him walk in its shade forever after.
The blade he had used to save me, at the end, I slung over my shoulder and carried with me, my own. I didn't know anything about it; I didn't know its past. I only knew that he had wielded it for a time, and used it to save me, his final choice and decision. I didn't need to know its past, I had not known my own for so long, and still walked the path that I followed, unknowing. I would take it, and wield it as well as I could, a memorial to those that I had brought to death and to pain, and a way to protect those that still lived. To remember him, who had brought me back to myself, and then given his life to allow me to move forward again.
In the end, the messages that we had for each other were the same. That your actions, even the smallest and the most insignificant, can have consequences. That even one man, or one woman, could possess the determination and the strength to create a nation, or to destroy it in kind, and that no part of yourself ever truly was forgotten. I felt that, in this, both he and I could finally walk our own roads in peace -- him to whatever home lay beyond, and me to the home that still remained here. He had given me back the gift of my past -- its loves and its joys, its pains and its horrors -- and so I was whole again. And I had given him back the gift of his mind, pulling him away from the brink of hatred and rage, despair and maddened destruction, that would have swallowed him whole and consumed him, never to return. I had loved him then left him, lost him then found him again. We had, in our history together, each taken all that the other had to give, and then taken more, over and over again, but we were settled now, and both of our souls, I felt, were clean.
So I left him there, to begin his long watch, and I left the Divide, that we'd both once called home. We'd had many homes, through many long and lonesome roads, lost into the past. I left him to his, and turned my eyes and my mind back to mine. To Big Mountain, where Arcade waited with Elise. Elise Esperanza Gannon-Calderon, my daughter. I had so much to tell her now, that I couldn't before. Of her grandfather and his vision, the waters of life, his purpose to bring hope to the people of the Wastes. Of our heritage, hers and my own, and the people, both those dead and alive, that had come before on my path. My successes and my failures, the things I'd done well, and where I had fallen, and made my mistakes. Of fledgling nations built and torn down, trials passed and trials failed, losses loved, and lovers lost.
But mostly to tell her of homes. One of his messages to me. That your home is not always the place you are born, but rather where it is that you found yourself, came face to face with yourself and found out who you were. I had found that place with her, and in the end nothing else mattered to me. I would tell her that it didn't matter where I was. As long as she was there beside me, my daughter, then that was where I could call home.
End of Chapter Sixteen, The Road Walked Alone
