Chapter 8 Lying signs that told the truth

Wallace had been called back into the cab to help his grandfather navigate the narrowing roads. Heading away from wherever home was to test the weapon they’d repaired. This left John alone with his thoughts, mind brimming with questions. The older man’s words bubbling up, well one word, programming. It felt like the best explanation. The knowledge of weapons, robots, and words unknown till he found them already implanted, programmed into his mind. Like the bots pulling the truck, programmed, at any point in the last fifteen years by the device on his arm.

An urge to delve into the new options that damn cartoon Vault Boy demanded he look at swelled. John glanced down, lifting his left arm to wake the screen. There it stood, grinning, pointing at each one in turn, demanding his input. As it had done, as it had taught him to do, in the early years of wearing it. He missed Rosie, her absence keenly felt. The guilt of his betrayal no longer lessened by numbness. She’d probably have already dove through half of them. She’d always been fearless. More curiosity than caution, and that played a part in the reason John left her behind. John summoned his courage beginning to click through the new notifications. Then the rolling, clanking, truck stopped.

“John, come up here.” Robco called out. With relief he leapt from the back of the truck. Tying the curtain down to preserve a disarming appearance. Unable to avoid seeing the perfectly round, singed holes left by Rusty. He approached the truck on the passenger side to reach the seat atop the cab he’d sat in that morning. “Other side.” Robco waved John round the front. He walked past the four Protectron bots, trying not to react as the lenses and lights tracked his movement.

John climbed into his new seat and the rolling, clanking started again. Robco noticed his new belt, recognising his grandson’s handiwork with a smile. He leant towards John, speaking as low to a whisper as he could. “Don’t run in that."

“He knows, it’s a work in progress.” John replied matching the volume. He wanted to make sure that the older man knew Wallace understood the shortcomings of his quick design.

Endless blue had all but vanished, overtaken by grey and white interlopers once again. The sun nowhere to be seen. Faded blacktop had given way to narrow, dirt paths. Not yet reclaimed by the encroaching forest of blood red leaves, gnarled branches, and blackened tree trunks. The horizon changed, no longer The Tower rising in the distance, but a sliver of rock face. Off white, crested with a hill.

As they rolled and clanked along the red leaves on John’s side changed to burnt remains of buildings at the edge of a ravine. John's eyes followed the steep drop until he felt a nudge in his ribs. He turned to see the older man pointing into the distance. As the truck stopped he heard the sound of water.

Further along the rock face water cascaded over in a volume John couldn’t have imagined. Churning, roaring over the wide channel it carved, smashing into a deep pool below. “It’s a called a waterfall.” Robco spoke in a tone that suggested he still enjoyed the view, even after seeing it countless times. John had no words, for all the horror in the old world it held great beauty too. “Factory Falls, to be precise.” Robco retrieved his map, prompting John to send another mapping pulse. As he’d been doing periodically throughout the day. It felt like the only thing about the device he trusted. “This here leads south to the Greene River, which runs east…” John’s focus barely shifted from the view. The older man couldn’t bring himself to interrupt. He just started up the truck again, wondering if carrying on was the right thing to do.

The factory that gave the falls its name crept into view on their right. Red brick, broken glass, two tall smokestacks collapsed across it. Like scars that never fully healed. John barely noticed it, still entranced by the waterfall that grew closer with every rolling clank.

Occasionally the sun would punch through holes in the grey white interlopers. Illuminating the falling water. It reminded John of pouring molten steel on the fabrication floor. The truck stopped, “Junior, get ‘em turned round, we won’t be long, any trouble you wake Rusty.” The boy began typing away as the bots systematically disconnected each other. “Come on.” The older man took his double barrelled shotgun, handing his trusty ten mil pistol to John as they walked. “It’s usually quiet out here but you never know.”

The pair walked past the factory, guns in hand, yet Robco moved calmly so John felt relaxed too. Square concrete buildings lay on the other side of the factory. Newer, holding up better and connected by walkways in various states of collapse. A grey road leading out and down into the distance.

John turned to see Robco walking in the other direction. He quickened his pace to catch him, the noise of his steps drowned out by falling water. He followed the older man across a rusted steel bridge. So close to the falling water he felt the fine spray cover him. John stayed for a moment, the older man good enough to wait for him.

John understood enough to realise this wasn’t how the bridge had been designed. Giant concrete chunks, worn smooth, mixed with deeply corroded metal parts, littered the sides of the river bed below. Its flow slowing, softening, the further it went from the chaotic falls. He could have stayed for hours, were it not for the thought of the boy alone, cramped and hidden, in the truck. “Not much further.” Robco said as John caught up, he had a look on his face John couldn’t read, unsure, conflicted. Like the look he had when Wallace shot his pistol that morning.

The pair pressed on down an older concrete road. Cracked, invaded by sickly looking grass. Burnt remains of long buildings on either side. The road began to split in two, one spur blocked by long abandoned trailers. The other rising on thick concrete, curving pleasingly round a pillar of steel.

Robco headed up, John following, to the remains of a winding road. Elevated from the ground on arches, most still standing. Weaving through the red canopy and going beyond it. Mirroring the rise and fall of the terrain. “This is the highway. Thousands of people use to drive up and down here in their cars, runs north to south.” Robco made sure he listened this time. “John, north to south. Now over there is The Tower.” Closer now than ever, John thought. Pin pricks of light just visible on the tall angular shape that dominated the valley floor around it.

“Come on, you need to see something.” The older man’s flat, even tone crept into his voice, but it didn’t feel like an instruction, more of a warning. John turned to see the biggest sign he’d ever seen, a giant Nuka Cola bottle painted on it. The words ‘enjoy ice cold’ still visible after all this time on a peeling red background.

John looked confused. Robco produced a bottle of his homemade whiskey from inside his coat. “See here, where I paint the R on, that’s so folks know I made it, they know it’s clean and won’t rot their guts.” John’s confusion deepened. “That up there, that’s a billboard. It’s what folks used in the old world to sell the things they made.” Robco took back his pistol and didn’t wait for John as he walked under the billboard. John followed, hoping the older man was nearing an explanation. “You remember when you asked me how I knew about the Vaults?” John's ears pricked up at the mention of the word he heard nearly every day, but never with an s on the end. He turned and there it stood.

Ten feet high, made of plastic that still looked new. That damn cartoon mascot, the one he’d been ignoring all day, the one that taught him so much as a boy, out here in the old world. With that painted grin and an outstretched arm it welcomed lines of smiling people up into a Vault door. The mere sight of even a drawing of that door brought back the screech of metal to John's ears. He read the words aloud as if to make them real to himself.

“Prepare for the Future! Vault’s Opening Soon!” Below the absolute fantasy the billboard depicted John could just make out more worn writing. “Contact your local Vault-Tec Rep now to book a visit! Call Now!” His tone didn’t match the upbeat nature of the words. He sounded like a man reading his own death notification, some part of him finally killed off. The sight impossible to accept, yet undeniably true. Enough to validate what he’d known for years, what they’d both known, both shared trapped away underground. Under the heavy rock and heavier lies, forced, coerced, into digging ever deeper, ever further away from the truth.

“I’m sorry Rosie.” John said aloud, wishing she could hear him. He turned away from the giant sign that lied to everyone else but gave him the truth. Away from that fucking cartoon grin he’d grown to hate, walking towards the edge of the elevated highway. John stopped, resting his calloused hands on the waist high, crumbling, crash barrier.

He stood silently staring out over the new, old world. Blood red canopy, rolling hills, winding rivers. People living, despite everything the Vault told him, taught him. All anchored into the bedrock of his mind with children’s stories, songs, posters, announcements, briefings, speeches. Day after day, year after year. He wanted to smash down the vast metal door and drag them all out into the sun, kicking and screaming if needed.

“You’re looking at this all wrong.” For an instant John felt like punching the older man. He felt like Robco was insulting him, calling him stupid. He hated being called stupid. He turned to look at the older man, smiling, offering him the opened whisky bottle. His anger melted quicker than it formed. Leaving a hint of shame for even thinking about hurting the man who’d saved him. The horror of the somehow still living meat wrapped skeleton that tried to maul him still fresh in his mind. On top of that fed him, offered him a bed, that was getting him where he needed to go.

John took the bottle and drank. The harsh burning in his throat causing him to cough while a smoky taste filled his mouth and warmed his chest. “I bet right now you wanna run back to that Vault, grab your girl, grab anyone who’ll listen and bring them out here to see this.” John couldn’t deny any of the older man’s words. “You’d get most of them killed, or worse.”

He couldn’t deny that either. “Everything they filled your head with, telling you that no one up top survived, putting pressure on you to do your so called duty. It was wrong, sick, cruel even. You weren’t saving humanity, you were there because some bright spark thought it up and wanted to make money.” The older man’s point revealed. “But you can’t just yank that reality away from hundreds of people then bring them out here. Most wouldn’t make it through the winter.” John found it impossible to argue against, especially as the lifelong vault dweller didn’t know what winter was. And knew first hand how fervently people would protect a lie. More so if it protected them from truths they didn’t want to hear.

Robco took the bottle and drank, “Come on, this’ll make you feel better.” The older man stood John a few feet away from the billboard, handed him the double barrelled shotgun. Twelve gauge, break action, according to the unearned knowledge. He took it and aimed right at that painted on grin of that fucking cartoon mascot, he squeezed the triggers. Both barrels erupted in the same instant spewing a cloud of lead that obliterated the Vault Boy on the sign from the waist up.

“I do actually feel better.” John smiled at Robco. The blast from the shotgun had destroyed more than an old sign. It destroyed the idea that John could ever go back to living that lie. “I’m going to find the parts. I’m going to get them there, then I’m going to get Rosie and leave. Whether she wants to be with me or not, she’ll be free, we both will.” John felt an iron determination behind his words that surprised even himself as he said them aloud to make them real.

“Sounds like a plan.” Robco took the shotgun from him and reloaded it, pocketing the spent shells. “If I can help you I will. Not just because I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. Because this world, the good and the bad, belongs to you as much as it does me, but you’ve got to be willing to fight for it. Fight for light in the darkness, fight for the good, and sometimes...kill for it.” John understood the older man completely, perhaps for the first time. Robco spoke with conviction, he truly believed that he could make things better. Stood in shattered proof of the lie John had lived, he believed it too. “And I told you you’d feel better didn’t I!” Robco brought a lightness to his voice, breaking the tension. John half laughed then threw back another, much smaller, glug of whiskey as they walked down, back past the roaring falls.

“Junior?” The older man called as they approached the truck, cab seemingly empty, bots lined up at the rear. The old truck cab door swung open and the boy of no more than eight jumped out. Dressed in the shiny blue jumpsuit John had given him, hands on hips, posing for dramatic effect. Even with the arms and legs doubled over it still looked far too big for him.

“What do you think Pop Pop? John said I could keep it, it’s magic!” Robco looked uncomfortable. Like he wanted to take it from the boy and return it to the man who’d almost literally given away the shirt from his back. John, still reeling from the revelations of the elevated highway, preempted the older man’s objections. In a way he knew Robco would understand.

“It will keep him safe, the boy comes first.” John wanted Robco to see the events of the day had woken him up to how dangerous the old world around him could be. The older man nodded silently in thanks. “And besides,” John raised his voice so the boy would hear. “My new belt is pretty neat.”

“Not yet it’s not, but it will be.” Wallace’s confident tone wouldn’t accept even a hint of false praise. “Now can we please shoot Rusty’s new arm?” The boy had many characteristics of a grown man, patience not among them.

Robco sent John and the boy to walk the edge of the factory and to bang on the huge wooden doors. Heavy hinges rusted shut, they barely moved, even with John’s strength. That done they returned to the truck. Now facing the opposite direction, ready to head for home. “All clear?” Robco asked as he undid the canvas cover, exposing the deadly secret weapon mounted in the back. Wallace nodded, John couldn’t be sure, his mind had been replaying the billboard image. The smiling faces gleefully heading into a life underground, under the Overseer. It made him sick.

“John.” The older man and his grandson were walking away. “Over here.” Robco called out as John stood still, lost in thoughts of lies, liars, and those who protected them.

The trio stood near the steel bridge. The sound of water crashing all around. The slumped mechanical torso clearly visible in the now exposed cargo bed. “All right John, let’s see what that thing of yours can do.” If Robco had called the jet black pipboy a ‘thing’ that morning John might have been inclined to defend it. Especially given the mechanical thing that lived in their truck. After the day’s events he wondered who’s machine was more thing like. And which was deadlier.

John scrolled to the diagnostic of the salvaged sentry bot. His four pin still connected even at this range. He drilled down through the options till he found the one he wanted. *remote override y/n?*

John pressed the ok button and waited, and waited, nothing. At first he thought he had something in his eye, sharp, irritating. It grew worse, more painful, hotter, burning behind his iris. He staggered, rubbing his eyes, and as quickly as the pain started it stopped. Vanished like it never existed at all.

John opened his eyes seeing something in his vision. Grey green, fractured, distorted, blocky. Taking up nearly a quarter of his vision. Rusty awoke, torso straightening, arms levelled in unison this time. The single glowing red eye swelled in intensity. Beaming out onto the world around it as the torso rotated, scanning until John could feel it upon him. He moved his arms, one of the blocky images in his eye did the same a fraction of a second later. Then John understood the image invading his vision. Dull and simple, fractured, dotted with basic shapes. He saw what the machine saw, its eye linked to his.

“Are you ok John?” The boy’s excitement had been replaced with concern for his new friend.

“I’m fine, I’m ok, just something in my eye.” John couldn’t have explained if he wanted to, and he didn’t want to. He accessed the pipboy, trying to find a way to clear his vision. He scrolled past error messages mixed with words like motion slaving, fire support, self destruct. Till he saw what he knew he wanted. *ocular link: ACTIVE*

He pressed the cancel button as hard as he’d ever pressed it, and mercifully the image invading his view vanished. Appearing instead on his pipboy in a far more accessible manner.

“You sure you’re ok?” Robco looked John in the eye, almost literally examining them. John composed himself and began operating the salvaged sentry bot remotely. The side wheel rotated it. The directional pad aimed the crosshairs on the crudely rendered digital interpretation of the factory. John found it intuitive, entirely new, yet eerily familiar.

“That’s so cool!” Wallace sounded giddy, but he tried to moderate it. Analysing the movement of the machine he treated as a living, breathing thing. “It’s cool right Pop Pop?”

“Gotta say, it’s pretty cool. Can you target the doors?” Within seconds the crosshairs were over the thick wooden doors that might as well have been a wall. John took a knee next to Wallace, holding out the screen so he could see.

“Press that button.” The boy’s face lit up, he reached out a thin finger from a small hand to the left button, then stopped.

“You did the heavy lifting John, I just helped, you should press it.” John smirked, a memory of his father in his head.

“Three, two, one.” He took the small boy’s hand in his and pressed the button with it.

The left arm raised slightly. The quad barrel grenade launcher clunked forward and back. With an ominous muffled plunk, it propelled a single high explosive round through the air. It smashed the wooden doors, reducing them to splinters with an ear shattering blast. Any moderation of the boy’s excitement disappeared quicker than the doors as he jumped and cheered. Mimicking the noise, even as splinters still fell.

“That’s fine work John.” Robco shook his hand tightly, “Damn fine work.” It was the most praise anyone had given John in years. But he knew his part had been little more than good maintenance and brute force. The real heavy lifting had been done by the jet black pipboy which still held many secrets.

“Had my eye on this place for a while.” Robco said as he and John entered through the splintered traces of the tall wooden doors. Parts still defiantly clung to their rusted hinges. “Planned on cutting it open when I scrounged up enough spare blades. Never did fancy messin with arm much in case it took Rusty with it.” Looking around at the devastation John agreed.

Pointed shards of wood, mostly from the centre where the rot hadn’t reached, were driven into the trailers of long idle haulage trucks. Piercing plastic barrels stacked high along the walls. As they walked glass cracked underfoot. John looked up to see freshly broken windows shattered by the same wooden projectiles. The last of the daylight streaming through for the first time in years.

The rest of the factory housed broken machinery. With smaller, similar looking machines placed along a winding conveyor belt. All but destroyed by the collapsing of the red brick smokestacks and the sections of roof they brought down.

“Car parts.” Robco shouted to John, pointing at a picture on the wall. The older man took a metal tube from his pocket twisting the end to turn on the weak flashlight. John quickly activated the directional light on his pipboy. Completely washing out the flashlight with its focused halogen LED. “Ain’t you just full of surprises.” Robco pointed, casting a long shadow. “Car parts.”

The faded painting on the wall bore little resemblance to the inert lumps of scrap that dotted the roads. Deep red, curved bodywork embellished with fins, lights, shiny chrome trim, leather seating. And more writing just about legible. ‘Keep ‘em moving boys!’

Robco checked his watch. “Well I don’t know about you but blowin shit up and finding a good score always makes me hungry. We’ll get a crew out here tomorrow while we’re in town, let’s go home”. Home, a word that never really held much meaning for John now meant absolutely nothing.

“Wait, a crew?” John immediately thought of an eight man work detail.

“Oh yeah, ‘Robco Industries’ got a nice ring to it right.” The older man laughed, walking back to the salvaged truck. John didn’t get the joke.

John spent most of the journey back consciously cultivating still waters in his mind. Trying to keep his mental dam from breaking. Before long they were rolling and clanking along the main road again,. The cloak of darkness beginning to fall.

To John’s surprise they stopped seemingly in the middle of nowhere. “Come on.” Robco jumped down. The boy handed him a crank handle from inside the cab. As well as a small black box with a rubberised rod sticking out from it that John didn’t recognise. The older man raised the black box to his mouth and spoke into it, “Robco and Wallace plus one rolling in”. A radio, John realised. even had the same squelch as a vcall.

“Copy Robco, all clear, welcome home.” The female voice replied and triggered a pipboy notification of a new frequency found.

John followed as the older man headed to the back of a long crashed haulage truck. Crashed on its side, staying there for years, being gradually absorbed by the red forest around it. Robco stood at the rear of the trailer, fitted the crank handle to the axel between the wheels and instructed John to turn it. Chains hidden from view clinked and became taught. Cogs wound as John turned the handle. The majority of what was the underside of the seemingly crashed and worthless trailer began to hinge open slowly. Finally lying flat bridging the gap to the road.

“Camouflage.” Robco said to John in his flat, even tone, seeing he didn’t take his meaning, “Hiding in plain sight.” He failed to stifle a laugh, looking at the six foot plus muscular man in the shiny blue suit. “Blending in.” John laughed, recognising he stood out like a bad rivet, but he also took note. And resisted the urge to blurt out his whole body became near invisible the day before. Robco entered the half opened trailer. He pulled switches that tripped counterweights levering the top open from either side. Slowly lowering what had been the roof of the trailer down flat with an echoing clang. Turning the sideways truck trailer into an entrance to dirt path beyond.

It became apparent almost immediately why Robco needed the all clear before crossing the hidden gateway. The noise became a calamitous crescendo. Starting with the clanking bots and finishing with the rolling treads. Sending out echoing clangs into the forest. Well trodden, wooden floor boards, attached to the inside, did little to muffle the sound. John followed over, flipping one last switch at Robco’s request. The entrance folded back into the derelict trailer that didn’t warrant a second glance.

The subterfuge didn’t stop with the entrance. From the road the red forest appeared as dense and foreboding any other wooded area. Yet the further in they went the more John noticed trees precisely chosen and cut down. Leaving blackened stumps with the brighter beige insides exposed.

The rolling, clanking, truck turned. Matching the curving flow of a shallow, fast moving stream. In the reverse of the eight lane, faded blacktop it grew wider, and wider still, as they followed its rocky banks and steady current.

The ground under the treads and crude robotic feet became concrete again. In the middle distance as they turned from the river, climbing a gentle upward gradient. John could make out something through the blackened trunks. Something piled, dumped between them. As he tried to trace its route through the returned red forest he was jolted in his seat by the abrupt stopping of the truck. On top of a small rise the seemingly dumped materials coalesced into a uniform shape. Horizontal stacks of tree trunks set deep into the earth, piled thick and high, a wall, built after the bombs fell. Still standing unlike the others John had seen.

Ahead of him a wooden gate, topped with sharp scrap metal, flanked on either side by built up watchtowers. A figure in one with a scoped rifle, just visible in the newly fallen night. Two letters were carved into the wooden gate. Before John could ask Robco answered him. “R.R. for Robco’s Rest.” There was deep pride in the older man’s voice. “Welcome.”