Fallout 3

Fallout 3

        Blood splattered on a field of vision immersed in a dimming white light.  An infant could be heard wailing desperately, and shapes of figures gradually faded into view.
        “It’s a girl!  A girl!” a man’s voice exclaimed with delight.  “We’ve got a daughter Catherine!  A beautiful, healthy baby girl!”
A woman breathed heavily in relief.  “Oh James… we did it!  A daughter.  A beautiful daughter.”
        “You’ve got a bright future ahead of you sweetie.  I’m sure of it.  Look at you!  Hi there!  I’m your daddy little guy!  You’re going to need a name aren’t you?  You’re mother and I have been talking; what do you think about… Olivia?  That’s a good name, don’t you think?”  A metal arm carrying a small, box-shaped screen swiveled into view next to the man, James.  “Looks like they’ve finished the gene-projection.  Let’s see what you look like when you’re all grown up.”
        After viewing the image on-screen for a moment, James chuckled.  “You’re going to look a lot like your dad.  See that Catherine?”
        “Oh, ha-ha, very strapping,” she sighed.
        “It’s a big world out there sweetie, full of all sorts of people.  What about you?  What sort of person are you going to be—?”
        “—James?”  Catherine suddenly started gasping.
        “Catherine?”  A beeping noise started up somewhere.
        “James—!” her panicked voice caught.
        “Catherine!” James cried out.  “She’s in cardiac arrest—start compressions!  Get the baby out of here!  Move, move!!”  The husband and wife disappeared from view as a cart was wheeled away.  James’ voice trailed behind them.  “Come on, hang on Catherine— come on!” he pleaded.  “One one-thousand… two one-thousand… three one-thousand….”
        Everything went white again.

*          *          *

         Olivia woke to a dim florescent light bulb flickering in the ceiling above her.
         She blinked slowly.  Except for the light, the room was dark.  The dim bulb clung to a makeshift shamble of iron rods and naked steel rafting holding up a patchwork roof of rusted sheet-metal paneling.  Thin rays of sun filtered into the room from holes in the ceiling and walls where rust had either eaten through or someone had taken a shotgun to it a few times.  Her body seemed strangely numb and her physical senses mute; like a dense lump of warm jelly.  She couldn’t tell what she was lying on at first, but she tried her fingers, and they groped the texture of a bare mattress. Olivia became aware of a dull throbbing in her head in rhythm to her heart rate, which was unsettlingly slow.  She shut her eyes to the gloomy surroundings and tried raising a hand over her aching head.  Like a sudden blow of a hammer a sharp pain struck her right shoulder and she winced, a stifled gasp escaping her clenched teeth.
         “You should be asleep,” a voice said.
         The pain ebbed as quickly as it came.  Olivia gently rolled her head to the right in response to the voice.  She was a little too out of it to feel as alert as she normally would; instead she was mainly curious.  Her eyes took in the view of the rest of the room— a little space, no more than a cubicle, occupied by a single filing cabinet, the bed, a desk, and man in a lab coat, peering through rectangular-rimmed glasses over some papers piled amidst a jumble of instruments and laboratory tools.
         Olivia’s eyes widened.  The man turned his head to her and offered a tired smile.  He could have been no older than forty, with short, relatively neat brown hair and a beard that had been recently and not badly trimmed.  There were many emotions conveyed in that small smile that Olivia could discern.  His expression was kind and gentle, as well as reassuring, but also weary, frustrated, and mostly… sad.  Resigned.
         The man sighed, tossed the papers onto his desk, and rolled his chair over to Olivia’s bedside, where he sat down again, readjusted his glasses, and looked at her with polite concern.
         “Feeling all right?”
         Olivia turned on her back and shut her eyes.  “I don’t think I could move if I wanted to.”
         “It took a few stimpacks, but your shoulder should be properly mended in a few hours.  That was a pretty nasty hit.”  The man took off his glasses and wiped them on a corner of his coat as he continued.  “Tell me: what was a girl like you doing out and alone in the metro?”
         Olivia would have readily replied, but realized she could hardly remember anything earlier than at least two days ago.  A few fuzzy glimpses came back to her as she dug into her memory: a dark tunnel; some creatures that looked like zombies.  She also remembered clearly not an image, but a certain feeling-- a memory of a firm sense of resolve and determination.  And pervasive fear.
         “I was looking for my father,” she finally said.
         The man raised an eyebrow.  “In Dupont?”
         Dupont.  Dupont.  “The metro tunnels… yeah.  But I don’t know what happened.  How did you find me?  Who are you?  Where am I?  What happened—?”  Olivia tried propping herself up, and didn’t realize that she’d started speaking really fast and her breath was seizing up.  The man calmly held out a hand to steady her, and quietly shushing her, eased her back down.
         “You’re going to be fine.  We’re safe and sound in Megaton.  You were badly injured when I found you, so I took you here, to my home.  My name is David.  Everything is going to be all right.”