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I don't want to set the world on fire... [Fallout. 4.]

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Vikarion:
12 February, 2287, 6:20 am

Well, today was...interesting.

I set up the antenna and generator yesterday, with the expectation that nothing would happen. Instead, I got a husband and wife who said they'd heard me over a ham radio. Go figure. I'd already planted some "tatos" from the Abernathy farm, so everything went fine. I set them up in one of the houses, pointed out some leaks in the roof, and headed out for Concord.

I didn't know why I avoided Concord for so long until I entered it.

When...back...well, back before the Day, Concord was...America. It was the town of Ralph Waldo Emerson, of Louisiana May Alcott, of our first rebellion against tyranny, our birthplace. And it was in ruins. But...I should not have been afraid. When I came into Concord, there was only one raider who I saw - and shot before he saw me. And then? Then there was the Museum of Freedom.

Most of the pre-war places I have visited were like visiting ancient tombs. Old. Dead. Even with raiders living in them temporarily, the concrete and steel nature of my world, the old world, lurked. I can feel it, calling to me, almost like dead ghost voices. The people I saw, perhaps knew. Gone, and forgotten, except by me, because I am them. Yet, for once, in Concord, there wasn't so much of that. For whatever reason, the old banners I saw last year at the tricentennial were still there. Well, and also not last year. But the city was largely intact, and most of the buildings were boarded up. In Concord, America wasn't gone, but just...sleeping.

Well, until I made my way to the Museum of Freedom. Then I encountered someone - Preston - on an exterior balcony, calling for my help. He practically screamed at that he was under attack by raiders and then ran back inside.

Well, given my new-found antipathy towards raiders, probably due in part to displaced anger and grief at the destruction of my...well, everything I loved, which should do it...I decided then and there to help. There were about seven raiders inside, and dispatching them required making my way up the interior of the building while taking every shot I had. That said, trapped between Preston's group and myself, the raiders didn't really have a chance.

When I reached Preston, he introduced me to his group, which he claimed was a group of survivors from somewhere called Quincy. Apparently they were attacked, and he is or was a member of the Minutemen, a group that tries to protect people. He also said that they'd been trapped there by the raiders, and more were coming outside. Then he and his pal Sturges told me that there was a suit of power armor on the roof, and wouldn't I please go get the fusion core for it?

I'm not a big fan of bragging, but I had actually grabbed the fusion core by that point, seeing as it had been entirely obvious and in my way. Hey, I'm from the 2070s, we knew what those were. Valuable, long-lasting, and somewhat dangerous. Just like gasoline, really, except renewable.

So I agreed, and headed towards the roof, when I encountered Mama Murphy. Mama Murphy, if nothing else, looked like a combination strung-out drug addict and old woman. I imagine she was both. And while I've never really had anything against drugs, as such, I'm also not a fan of addicts. And she was an addict, but she had a warning: she told me that something had been attracted by the noise, not a raider, and that it was bad.

Well, I admit it. I listened politely, but mentally, I blew her off and went for the armor. It was outside, just out of the crashed vertibird, with a holotape sitting on a table, waiting. It turned out to be from a Staff Sergeant Daly. He spoke about the loss of his crew, why they crashed (the nuke went off) and then signed off. But what was more interesting was his claim that the event was "global", and "God bless America, or what's left of it".

So...it was global. And it was devastating. Aside from that, I didn't learn much. Well, yes, I heard his despair, his pain - but what was I to do about it? I was...not robbed - I'm alive, and Vault-Tec did try to save us - but I was deprived of any chance to...to live life as I would have otherwise. But that's my fault. No, our fault. Our first thought was the Vault, we signed up for it, and we both went there. Oh, yes, I was the one to lead us there, but Nate was much more on-board with Vault-Tec than I was. He was always the one who trusted the institutions of our country more, too. So, I want to blame myself, but..."honey, you should take the job". So, yes, I want to take credit, but I can't.

Power armor is both claustrophobic and...powerful. I shoved the fusion core in, turned the access wheel, and the armor popped open. I stepped into it, and...well...Nate wore power armor once or twice. He tried to describe it to me, but I think it may be different for everyone. It felt...good. Like a second skin. Except, of course, stronger, faster, and nearly invincible. I yanked the minigun off the Vertibird, and moved to the edge of the roof.

Well, the raiders had returned, that was for sure. I blasted one with the minigun - terrible weapon for aim, but it seemed to literally just gush bullets like a hose when I used it. Then I dropped to the street below - which was awesome, by the way, just freaking "KABAAM!" and then I was there - and moved off down the street, hosing down anyone suspicious. Which most definitely included the leader of the gang.

And that was when the Deathclaw showed up. I know what they are now, after talking to Preston, but my initial impression was of some sort of dinosaur. I instantly emulated the drug addict, Mama Murphy, and popped some Jet. Yes, it's addictive, and I started craving it, but, on the "I'm-still-breathing" scale, it meant little to the fact that a 12-foot freaking lizard popped out of a sewer grate.

However, whatever Jet does to other people, for me, it changed things into some sort of movie-esque slow-motion. I watched, nearly detached, as I emptied the rest of the ammo box into the creature, watched as it dropped, realized I needed to reload, slammed another one in, ran backwards, and finally dropped the thing just as it managed to come around some cars to get to me.

Thank goodness for hurried evacuations.

Anyway, Preston and so forth were properly grateful, and, to be honest, I was pretty relieved. i don't know what a deathclaw is, but I can say they look about three times as mean as a raptor, thanks to those claws. But what was arresting for me was not just the fight, or the response, but that when I went back inside, Mama Murphy - after telling Preston to stop hassling her about chems - told me that I would find the next clue to my son in Diamond City.

Which I would have nodded, smiled, and then moved on from...except that I never said a thing about Shaun. I had just said I was looking for a missing person. It was...creepy.

And yet...what if Shaun is alive? What if he wasn't kidnapped for some cruel reason? I can't think of why someone would want an infant, but maybe I will find him in Diamond City.

In the middle of Boston. After a nuclear war. And after an indeterminate period of time.

But...but...when you love someone, really love them, you'd do almost anything for them. And...I listened to Nate's holotape, after Concord. He called it "Hello, honey". And he called me a great mother. I'm not a great mother. Yeah, ok, so I can grow a kid. And, yeah, I tried to put up with any stupid crap without getting upset. But that makes you...a normal person. I hope. But a great mother? A great mother would have stopped them, whoever they were. A great mother would have grabbed Shaun first, instead of running out to the tv.

Except that, I didn't know. And that, to an extent unmercifully, short-circuits the guilt. Painfully. Cruelly.

We humans want a way to blame ourselves for what happened. But this is arrogance, pride. We do not, usually, control what happens, we just pretend we do, according to our stated values and ideas. But when tragedy strikes, we retreat into our realm of ideas, of will, and pretend that we could have done better.

But we couldn't. This is the world. We live in it. So I bundled everyone up and got them back to Sanctuary and now...?

Now I will go out and look at the world that is.

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