Fallout - Chapter 109: Possession (Patreon)

After that reflection, Jace turned his attention to the door leading to Station 4.

In the vision at The Pit, the door had been pure black, like a cold, sharply outlined void against the faint golden glow.

In reality, however, it was dark red.

It was nothing more than an ordinary industrial steel door. Large patches of dark red anti-rust paint had peeled away, exposing the dull gray metal beneath.

Several sandbag barricades were piled in front of it. From what Jace remembered of the game, thick iron chains should have been wrapped around the door again and again, sealing the passage so tightly that nothing could get in or out.

But now the chains were broken.

Shattered links lay scattered across the floor, and the red door stood half open.

It had clearly been forced open from the inside.

Jace bent down and picked up a length of broken chain.

The links were nearly as thick as his little finger and had considerable weight to them. He hefted the chain once, then hooked it around his waist and let it hang beside his power armor.

He reached out and pushed the red door open.

The hinges let out a long, piercing squeal, the unmistakable sound of metal that had gone far too long without oil.

The noise carried deep into the empty tunnel.

Beyond the door was a long, pitch-black passage.

It was longer than any of the connecting tunnels between the previous stations, and one thing immediately stood out.

There were support pillars everywhere.

Every two or three meters, a thick steel column ran from floor to ceiling, firmly supporting the rock overhead.

This was far beyond the level of reinforcement a normal mining passage would ever need. It had been reinforced to the absolute limit, for one purpose alone.

To keep the rock from collapsing.

The group entered the passage.

The underground vibrations were much stronger here.

They were no longer the intermittent tremors from before. Instead, a continuous low-frequency hum ran through the tunnel, spreading through their entire bodies until even their teeth seemed to vibrate with it.

Halfway down the passage, Jace spotted a familiar circuit breaker box.

It was identical to the ones at the previous stations, rusted all over with its door hanging half open.

He reached out and threw the main breaker.

Click.

Nothing happened.

Not a single light came on.

The lighting circuit in this passage was completely dead. Either decades of deterioration had finally destroyed it, or something had deliberately sabotaged it.

“Keep moving,” Jace ordered.

An abandoned forklift sat at the end of the tunnel. Its tires had gone flat, and a thick layer of gray-brown grime covered its frame.

Beside it stood a second door.

Unlike the red door behind them, this one was bare gray industrial metal with no paint at all. Its surface was covered in dents of varying depth.

There was no lock.

Only a round metal handle.

Beyond this door lay Station 4, the deepest part of Dunwich Borers.

Jace stopped in front of it, took a deep breath, then turned toward everyone behind him.

“Get ready. There’s definitely something wrong on the other side.”

No one wasted time talking.

Danse checked his laser rifle and made sure the fusion cell was seated securely. Nate adjusted the stock of his rifle and planted it firmly against his shoulder.

The other Knights and Minutemen veterans checked their weapons and settled into position.

Everyone was ready for a fight.

Jace wrapped his hand around the cold metal handle and twisted hard.

A dry grinding sound followed as the handle turned.

He pushed the door open.

A wave of stale, decaying air heavy with the smell of metal rushed toward them.

Then a blinding light exploded across their vision.

It did not come from inside the room.

It simply appeared without warning, filling everything in front of them.

Just like the illusion at Station 3, brilliant white light swallowed their sight in an instant.

Sound vanished.

Touch vanished.

Even their sense of space disappeared.

Slowly, the white light faded.

The scene around them had completely changed.

The dark, oppressive mine was gone.

In its place stood a brightly lit, noisy pre-War excavation filled with the roar of machinery.

The industrial lights overhead were almost painfully bright, flooding the area with even white light.

Several massive machines were running at full power.

Drilling machines hammered relentlessly into the rock face, their pounding deafening.

Loaders dumped heaps of ore into mine carts, filling the air with the endless clatter of stone against metal.

Several workers in work clothes and yellow hard hats moved supplies beside the tracks.

They walked back and forth, each focused on his own task.

Not one of them paid the slightest attention to the group that had suddenly appeared.

“What the hell is going on?” a Knight asked over the comm channel, panic clearly audible in his voice. “Another illusion?”

“It’s an illusion,” Jace said with certainty.

He cautiously stepped forward.

Hard, dry rock pressed beneath his foot.

It felt disturbingly real.

He turned to look behind them.

The gray metal door had vanished completely.

A solid rock wall now stood in its place.

“General, the way back is gone,” Preston said grimly.

“I know.”

For a moment, no one knew what to do.

Should they attack the pre-War workers moving around them?

Or should they investigate the rock wall that had appeared behind them?

The workers continued passing nearby without ever noticing them.

It was almost as though the two groups occupied parallel spaces. Jace and the others could see them, but the workers could not see Jace’s group.

Then Jace heard the call again.

This time, it was clearer than ever.

It was no longer a vague echo resonating somewhere deep inside his mind.

It sounded real.

A voice coming from a specific direction, piercing through the noise of the illusion and reaching his ears directly.

It was calling to him.

The voice still spoke in that ancient language he had never heard before, yet somehow found inexplicably familiar.

This time, he understood one word.

“Come.”

Then the light disappeared.

It was as if someone had switched off the lights in a room.

The pre-War mine, the roaring machinery, the busy workers.

Everything shattered into countless specks of light and vanished into the darkness.

They were back in the real mine.

Pitch-black.

Cold.

And the gray door was still there in front of them, standing half open.

Jace pushed it open.

Beyond it was no quiet station.

A mass of snarling ghouls was charging straight toward them.

“Open fire!”

Every weapon in the group erupted at once.

Lasers and bullets formed a dense wall of fire, riddling the raider ghouls at the front with holes.

The group advanced directly into the horde.

Their firepower was dense enough that despite the number of creatures ahead, none could get close under the concentrated barrage.

Jace led from the front.

He drew his shotgun and fired at close range, blasting several withered feral ghouls away as they lunged at him from the side.

They fought their way forward, leaving the passage littered with bodies.

Eventually, they reached a T-junction.

Each of the three directions was different.

To the left, a ramp climbed upward. A faint trace of light could be seen at the far end, most likely an exit back to the surface.

Straight ahead was a level passage, with a larger open area faintly visible at the other end.

Turn left and climb the ramp, and they could retreat immediately.

Go straight ahead, and they would reach the altar.

Jace stopped at the intersection.

He looked back at the others.

Everyone was breathing heavily, their power armor stained with ghoul blood.

“What do we do?” Jace asked.

He did not need to explain anything else.

Everyone understood what this intersection represented.

Preston spoke first.

“We’ve fought our way this far. We’re going in.”

Nate nodded without saying anything.

He tightened his grip on his rifle and took one step toward the passage ahead.

The Knights and Minutemen veterans exchanged glances, then followed.

“If we don’t deal with whatever’s in there now,” one of the Knights said grimly, “the next time something happens, it might be worse than a Corpse Mountain.”

No one disagreed.

Jace turned and led the way down the passage ahead.

It was not long, only about twenty meters.

At the end was a wide open space.

Station 4.

The station was large, roughly the same size as Station 1.

Clear signs of heavy reinforcement covered the surrounding rock walls. Steel support beams, anchor bolts, welded joints.

The reinforcement here was far denser than at any of the previous stations.

But the center of Station 4 was completely empty.

The entire place was as silent as a tomb.

No.

It was a tomb.

A two-hundred-year-old tomb.

A terminal was embedded in the rock wall on one side of the station.

Jace walked over and pressed the power button.

The screen lit up immediately.

He quickly went through the stored records.

Most were ordinary operational data. Equipment inventories, supply allocations, personnel schedules.

Nothing particularly useful.

Then something caught his eye.

A holotape.

Jace removed it from the terminal’s holotape slot and examined it.

It was remarkably well preserved, with no obvious damage to the casing.

He inserted it into his Pip-Boy and started playback.

A man’s voice began speaking, sounding as though he were making a deliberate effort to remain calm.

“Management. Tim Shoots here.”

“The new equipment came in a few days ago without raising any suspicion. The workers at Station 4 still think we’re building a new station beyond this area. The stand-in crew you hired has been convincing enough.”

“But I am worried about the project managers at the other stations. Especially Bob at Station 1. We all know how seriously he takes his work... Those project updates of his are starting to get on my nerves. I have a feeling he’ll realize something is wrong here sooner or later.”

The recording went silent for several seconds.

“Tell me what you want me to do.”

The recording ended.

Everyone remained silent for a moment.

“...Bob again,” Preston murmured.

“Bob Stanson,” Jace repeated.

The Project Manager from Station 1.

Tim Shoots, the man who had made the recording, was clearly part of the company’s inner circle.

He had participated alongside Management in that insane sacrificial plan.

Yet even people like them, people who knew the truth and actively participated in it, had been wary of Bob.

Because Bob was someone who genuinely took his work seriously.

In a mine consumed by madness and darkness, the man who simply did his job properly was the one who stood out most.

As everyone considered this, a much stronger tremor struck.

It was nothing like the continuous humming from earlier.

This was a violent jolt, as if something far below them had suddenly struggled against its restraints.

The entire station shook.

The lighting fixtures overhead swung back and forth, clanging against one another, while loose fragments of stone rained down from the walls.

Everyone staggered.

Several Knights had to brace themselves against the rock wall to stay upright.

The shaking lasted three or four seconds before gradually subsiding.

As soon as it stopped, Jace walked to the wall, found the circuit breaker box for Station 4, and threw the main breaker.

Click.

This time, the lights came on.

No flickering.

No hesitation.

The lighting system at Station 4 was fully operational.

More than a dozen industrial lights came on simultaneously, flooding the entire station with light.

One large, powerful searchlight mounted high in a corner stood out from the rest.

The instant it came on, a thick beam of white light shot across the station and landed directly on a concealed opening recessed into the rock near the edge.

The mine entrance was small.

It was hidden inside a depression along the edge of the station and would have been easy to miss without looking carefully.

“This is it,” Jace said quietly.

He started toward the opening.

The closer he came, the clearer the familiar voice became.

Before, it had always sounded distant and indistinct, like a faint echo from somewhere deep inside his consciousness.

Now it was so clear that it seemed as though someone were whispering directly into his ear.

Real.

Unsettling.

It still spoke that ancient, unfamiliar language that he somehow understood instinctively.

It was calling his name.

Not a name anyone had ever told him.

Yet somehow, in that moment, he knew with absolute certainty that the name belonged to him.

Warmth spread through his body.

It felt as though a small fire had been lit inside his chest.

It did not burn.

It was gentle.

Comforting.

His entire body relaxed.

Without realizing it, he took another step forward.

Then another.

His thoughts began to blur.

He could still sense everything around him.

The lights in the station.

The voices of his companions.

The ground beneath his feet.

But all of it seemed far away, as though separated from him by a thick pane of glass.

His body kept walking forward.

His consciousness seemed to remain behind, watching his own body move away.

He felt good.

Far too good.

It was like being held gently in the palm of a warm hand.

There was nothing to think about.

Nothing to do.

All he had to do was keep walking.

“Beep! Beep! Beep!”

The Pip-Boy on his wrist suddenly erupted with a shrill, rapid alarm.

Jace stopped dead.

He looked down.

A warning icon flashed across the Pip-Boy screen, with a line of text blinking beneath it.

It took his eyes nearly half a second to focus enough to read it.

Warning: Absorbed radiation dose critically exceeds safe limits.

Red numbers continued climbing across the screen.

Almost as if the device were warning him directly.

You are standing at the edge of death.

Jace snapped back to awareness.

He stumbled two steps backward, dropped into a crouch, and clutched his head with one hand.

A violent headache struck the instant his mind cleared.

It felt as though someone were slowly scraping the inside of his skull with a dull knife.

“General!”

Preston saw something was wrong and rushed over.

“Help me... get me away from that hole.” Jace’s voice was dry and hoarse, with a slight tremor running through it.

Preston asked no questions.

He and Nate immediately grabbed Jace from either side and quickly dragged him away from the radiation pouring from the mine entrance.

They helped him sit down near the edge of the station.

Jace gasped for breath.

Cold sweat covered his forehead, and his fingers were still trembling.

“General, did you absorb too much radiation?” Danse crouched beside him, concern obvious in his voice.

“That thing was luring me,” Jace replied hoarsely.

“It was calling me over there.”

He raised his head and looked toward the small mine opening.

The searchlight still shone directly into it.

But the white beam vanished the moment it crossed the entrance, as though something inside were swallowing the light.

Jace drew another breath.

“So what do we do now?” one of the Knights asked.

There was a trace of tension in his voice that he could not quite hide.

Anything capable of nearly ensnaring Jace was clearly not something they could take lightly.

Nate was still staring at the mine entrance without blinking.

He had a feeling.

There was someone inside.

“Nate?” Preston called.

Nate did not answer.

His pupils suddenly contracted.

A green light appeared deep inside the mine.

It was as though someone had ignited a green flare in the pitch-black depths.

Then the light moved.

A glowing green human figure flew out of the tunnel.

Its outline was indistinct, like a cloud of smoke stained with fluorescent light.

A head, torso, and limbs could just barely be made out, but every detail was drowned beneath the eerie green glow.

The instant it appeared, it rushed straight toward Jace.

“Something’s coming!” Nate shouted.

Everyone turned at once and saw it.

“Fire!” Danse ordered.

Laser beams and bullets tore through the air.

Every shot passed straight through the green figure without resistance and slammed into the rock wall behind it, scattering chips of stone.

It had no physical body.

It was some kind of consciousness.

Or perhaps a ghost.

Jace forced himself to move, trying to stand and dodge.

But the violent headache had slowed him, leaving his body stiff and unresponsive.

In the blink of an eye, the green figure was right in front of him.

He could feel the burning heat of radiation rushing toward his face.

Just before it struck him, someone charged in from the side.

Nate threw himself forward with everything he had and slammed Jace out of the way.

The next instant, the green figure passed straight into Nate’s body.

Nate froze.

His entire body locked in place like a statue frozen in an instant.

Every movement, every expression, every muscle remained fixed in the posture he had taken after knocking Jace aside.

Then he collapsed.

“Nate!”

Everyone rushed toward him.

Nate lay on the ground and began convulsing violently.

These were not ordinary spasms.

His entire body shook uncontrollably, like a fish being electrocuted.

“Hold him down! Hurry, hold him down!” Preston shouted.

Several people piled onto Nate and pinned him against the ground.

Even with the strength of their power armor, they could barely restrain him.

At that moment, Nate was displaying terrifying strength far beyond anything a normal human should have possessed, enough to fight against the restraints of the armor itself.

“Get the armor off! Get him out of the power armor!”

Several people hurriedly began removing Nate’s T-51 power armor.

His violent convulsions made the clasps repeatedly pop loose or jam, making the process extremely difficult.

It took considerable effort before they finally managed to remove his chest plate and helmet.

Nate’s face was exposed beneath the lights.

His eyes had completely changed.

Green light shone from within them.

The glow filled his entire eyeballs, erasing any visible boundary between iris and pupil.

All that remained were two deep, eerie pools of fluorescent green.

White foam continued spilling from the corners of his mouth.

Then everyone noticed something even more horrifying.

Under the powerful searchlight, Nate’s shadow on the ground was wrong.

It was not a single human silhouette.

Several human outlines seemed to overlap within it, twisted together in layers, constantly writhing, deforming, and pulling against one another.

Then they looked at the readings on his Pip-Boy.

A chill ran through everyone.

The radiation accumulating inside Nate’s body was climbing at a terrifying rate, fast enough to watch the numbers rise in real time.

“RadAway! Get the chems!” Danse shouted.

One of the Knights immediately dug through the first-aid kit and pulled out RadAway and Rad-X.

Danse forced Nate’s clenched jaw open and administered both.

The effect was almost nonexistent.

The rise in radiation slowed for only an instant.

Then it began skyrocketing again.

The chems were like a few drops of cold water tossed into a pot of boiling water.

They could not reverse what was happening.

Danse stared at the readings, unease and helplessness filling his voice.

“No. It’s too fast...”