Fallout - Chapter 108: Deeper In (Patreon)

Once the battle was over, everyone finally relaxed and slumped to the ground, breathing heavily.

Charred chunks of flesh lay scattered everywhere. The air reeked of burnt meat and acrid ozone, a foul, choking mixture.

“Check everyone for injuries,” Jace ordered.

The Knights and Minutemen veterans quickly checked one another over. Aside from the Knight who had been swallowed by the Corpse Mountain and the veteran who had tried to save him, both of whom were covered in slime, everyone was largely unharmed.

“Jack, you two all right?” another Minutemen veteran asked, patting his comrade after he crawled out from among the chunks of flesh.

“I’m fine... It’s just this smell.” Jack tugged at the blackened scraps of flesh and slime clinging to his power armor. “It’s disgusting.”

“Honestly, this isn’t that bad,” the Knight beside him said. “I fell into a Yao Guai den once. Now that smell...”

“All right, all right. We don’t need to compare,” Danse cut them off.

To make sure nothing dangerous was left behind, everyone got back to their feet and began cleaning up the area.

Nate and Preston gathered the larger pieces of flesh into several piles. Danse crouched beside a few relatively intact tissue samples, sliced off several pieces with his knife, and placed them in the sample collection pouches attached to the side of his power armor.

“What are you collecting those for?” one of the veterans asked curiously.

“I’m taking them back to Proctor Ingram for analysis,” Danse replied without looking up as he continued packing the samples away. “If we can figure out how this kind of regeneration and fusion between separate organisms works, it could have value in biological research.”

Of course, it might also lead to the creation of even more terrifying biological weapons.

The remaining scraps of flesh were divided into several piles and doused with oil. A few incendiary grenades were tossed in, setting them ablaze.

Flames roared up at once. The pieces of flesh hissed as they burned, and the nauseating stench of charred meat once again spread through the air. Firelight danced across the rock walls, casting shifting shadows that made everyone’s faces flicker between light and darkness.

They stood silently nearby and watched until the last traces of mutated flesh had burned, charred, and crumbled into ash.

Nothing was left that could become a problem later.

“Let’s go.”

Jace turned first and headed deeper into the mine.

As they descended, the tunnels were unnaturally quiet.

There were no footsteps.

At least, none except their own.

Even the regular vibrations they had previously felt coming from somewhere deep underground were gone.

The entire mine was as silent as death.

After the Corpse Mountain was destroyed, the remaining feral ghouls seemed to have withdrawn into the darkness below, either afraid of something or waiting for something.

The group made it back to Station 3 without encountering any resistance.

The Pit.

Darkness still swallowed their light around its edges, preventing them from seeing the bottom.

But at least the ghoul horde was gone.

“Search the area,” Jace ordered. “See if there’s anything useful.”

The group spread out and began searching along the walkway circling The Pit.

Jace followed the walkway halfway around the wall and found a terminal mounted into one of the steel support columns.

A thick layer of gray-brown grime covered the screen, almost completely obscuring it. He wiped the display clean and pressed the power button.

The screen slowly came to life.

It responded much more sluggishly than the terminal at Station 1, but it still worked well enough.

Jace quickly went through the stored records.

There was nothing particularly important.

Management had simply used the same trick again, sending an “urgent message” ordering the manager of Station 3 to report to Station 4.

It was almost identical to the message he had seen on the Station 1 terminal.

Beside the terminal stood a rusted circuit breaker box.

Jace pulled open the door and threw the main breaker.

Click.

Just like the previous two times, a crisp mechanical sound rang out and the lights overhead began flickering.

This time, however, very few came on.

Out of more than a dozen fixtures, only three or four remained functional. Some had broken filaments, others had deteriorated wiring, and a few were missing their sockets entirely.

Still, that little bit of light was enough for them to finally see the bottom of The Pit.

The industrial floodlights penetrated the darkness that had previously seemed almost solid.

Their beams were still considerably weakened, but they could now make out the general shape of the pit floor.

Scattered across it were large amounts of metal debris and torn cloth, along with something stranger.

Dark green slime.

It gave off a faint sheen beneath the lights.

Trails of the slime stretched across the ground, as though something had been dragged up from deeper within The Pit.

“This must be where the Corpse Mountain was born.”

Once they had gotten a clear look below, the group followed the spiral metal walkway down along the wall of The Pit.

A massive water pump stood in the center of the pit floor.

It was considerably taller than a person, with a cast-iron housing and several thick pipes connected to the top and extending upward.

It looked as though it had been out of service for many years.

But there was no obvious damage to the casing. If they could restore power to it, it would probably still work.

Jace’s attention shifted to a terminal beside the pump.

He walked over and pressed the power button.

This terminal had clearly been maintained far better than the ones above.

The system was also unlocked.

Whoever had used it last had never logged out.

Jace went straight into the system and began reading through the entries.

First entry:

Cleaning House

A bunch of complete cowards. Saugus Ironworks can’t operate without iron ore, so Slag sent me here to figure out why these useless bastards can’t scrape together a shipment of scrap to save their lives.

And what do I find when I get here?

A bunch of lazy yellowskins sitting around eating what they didn’t earn, spending all day muttering to themselves about the strange, horrifying things deeper in the mine.

Well, I’m here now.

These parasites have something much worse than a few feral ghouls to be afraid of.

Jace frowned slightly after reading it.

One word in the entry stood out.

Yellowskins.

He had no idea what the term meant, but from the contempt dripping from the entry, it was clearly meant as an insult.

He continued scrolling.

Second entry:

Another Stoppage

The first two shipments went out on time, but the crew we sent down to clear the ghouls from the lower levels still hasn’t come back.

We’re almost out of scrap on the surface. We need to dig deeper into the mine.

Looks like I have to handle everything around here myself.

The tone of this entry was noticeably more tired and anxious than the first.

Then came the third entry.

There was no title.

Only a single sentence repeated over and over again.

I’m safe in the light. I’m safe in the light. I’m safe in the light. I’m safe in the light.

The same words filled the entire screen.

Jace stared at them for several seconds.

This really was Bedlam’s terminal.

And the entry confirmed his earlier suspicion.

By the end, she could no longer tell light from darkness.

Surrounded by darkness, she had frantically repeated “I’m safe in the light” to herself, desperately trying to convince herself through sheer repetition.

But her body and mind had already betrayed her.

She had become part of the darkness.

Jace, however, was more interested in something else now.

He stood and turned toward the others.

“Do any of you know what ‘yellowskin’ means in that log?”

Preston walked over and glanced at the entry on the screen. His expression grew slightly serious.

“It’s a slur people in the wasteland use for non-feral ghouls.”

He paused before explaining further.

“Radiation leaves a lot of ghouls with a sickly yellow or dark yellow complexion. That’s why some people in the wasteland call them ‘yellowskins.’”

Jace nodded in understanding.

So it was just another form of prejudice. The world had changed, but people still found reasons to look down on one another.

“So these raiders were enslaving non-feral ghouls and forcing them to work?” Jace asked.

“Very likely,” Preston replied. “Non-feral ghouls can survive on radiation without food or water. To raiders, that makes them extremely cheap labor.”

Jace casually switched off the terminal and was about to turn away when another question occurred to him.

“Come to think of it, do ghouls actually need to eat?”

The question came out of nowhere.

Preston opened his mouth, then closed it again.

He had lived in the wasteland his entire life. He had seen ghouls eating people, and he had seen them wandering aimlessly.

But he had never really considered the question.

“I’ve never thought about it,” he admitted. “Feral ghouls attack humans partly to feed, but if ghouls can survive on radiation alone, what’s the point of eating?”

Danse walked over and began explaining.

“Ghouls can survive entirely on energy supplied by radiation.”

“But if food is available, why wouldn’t they eat?” Danse countered. “Humans can survive on nutrient solution too, but if someone puts a steak in front of you, you’re not going to turn it down.”

“For non-feral ghouls, eating isn’t just about survival. It’s also one way they preserve what remains of their humanity and sense of self.”

“Even mindless feral ghouls will gradually dry out and shrivel if they go too long without food, eventually becoming withered feral ghouls.”

The term immediately brought an image to Jace’s mind.

The withered feral ghouls from the game.

Tougher than ordinary feral ghouls, harder to kill, and faster as well.

“Then why are withered feral ghouls actually stronger?” he asked.

Danse patiently explained.

“Because withered feral ghouls are usually very old. After prolonged exposure to radiation, their skin becomes tough, almost like tanned leather. And because there’s very little moisture left in their bodies, they weigh less and move more quickly.”

“If the environment is humid enough,” Danse continued, “their weakened immune systems can’t fight off fungi that thrive on radiation. The fungi grow across their bodies and spread through their tissue, forming a kind of composite structure that makes them look as if they’re rotting.”

“But that structure also gives the feral ghoul additional protection.”

Jace listened, then sighed.

“Ordinary people really have it rough.”