Homunculize: Aldous

  • Fedora.png

    Aldous had never been the type of kid to play aimlessly in the sandbox, or to go to school every day and sit in the same chair, attentively listening to the teacher’s monotonous, apathetic tone. So he took the first opportunity he could, and he hitched a ride with Sven the trader. The agreement was this: the trader would smuggle him out in a bag, tell no soul about it, and would receive seven caps when they had made it safely from the Vault. The kid, fancying himself a negotiator, had bargained Sven down from his original charge of ten.

    However, the deal had not included any mention of further travel, and so Aldous was left by the trader, who had never been much of a people person to begin with. He sat on the edge of a crane in the construction lot in front of the vault door, contemplating what he would’ve called his “next great move”. The kid fancied himself a lot of things, not only a negotiator.

    He decided, after limited deliberation, to head to the East. He didn’t know why, exactly, but it seemed like a good direction. Related to the sun or something like that. So he headed, east, unsure of what he would find, but perhaps the mystery was the reason he left the Vault in the first place. The child wandered along the roadside, cracked by years of wear, staying close to the edge of the forest that ran along it. He had read a book before, during Free Read Time in the classroom, and a boy only slightly older than he had done the same. The only difference was that there were no bloatflies before the war.

    When Aldous spotted the first, he had no idea what it was. At that distance, it could have merely been the shadow of a fat tree, or else an apparition of his mind. After all, he had heard of the terrors of the wasteland, through the whispers of the traders, and the rumors that they passed. But as the bug approached, bobbing through the thick, swampy air, it became clear to Aldous what it was, and so he ran. While running, he spotted the train tracks that ran near the road, and made his way toward them, forgetting that the high ground was useless without a weapon. Aldous also fancied himself a tactician.

    He ran up to the tracks, his feet slipping in the shifting gravel as he ascended the little hill. He didn’t dare to turn back as he crested the hill, and so he continued his sprint along the tracks, his legs still sore from his short journey in the trader’s bag. He ran along the tracks, their wood practically sawdust after dozens of decades of wear and tear. It was sifted away under the heavy step of his sneakers, their clean gleam already sullied by the mud of the wastes. The bloatfly was right behind him, neither gaining nor losing ground, and just out of range to release its vile spit. Its buzz, like that of a dozen flies, assailed Aldous’ ears. The sound was detestable, and so Aldous sped his little legs up, the shot of adrenaline his body had delivered causing him to forget the pain in his legs and his side--the kid had never run so much as that day.

    When the adrenaline began to wear off is when Aldous crested the little bump in the tracks. Beneath him lay what looked to be a little building, its white-painted wooden slats worn and dying. Around it was a fence, mangled and rusty, and two or three people seemed to be working a small farm inside.

    At first they didn’t notice him, but as his yells grew to screams, the two eldest picked their heads up from the arid dirt they were hoeing, and saw the little kid stumbling down the gravel hill towards them. They didn’t seem scared, instead hurrying with calm resolve to their weapons, while the youngest, a little girl, ran back to the skinny white tower. The first picked up her pistol, bulky and pre-war, and the other a pipe.

    The kid didn’t notice this though, and only kept running to the farm. So when the pistol cracked, the bullet whizzed by his head, and the creature behind him squealed in pain, Aldous was utterly surprised.

    ***

    The family was kind enough, Aldous supposed. They had helped him to get his breath back, had offered him a meal, and had pumped some water for him to drink. However, they would not let him stay. Aldous had noticed the squalor they lived in, and they had barely enough food as they were. Another body, even that of a child’s, would have starved them, and Aldous didn’t want his first interaction with a wastelander to be that of stealing their livelihood.

    So they sent him off with this: two cans of food, one bottle of water from the source, a new coat that reached down past his knees, and an old, rusty ten millimeter pistol, though they could only afford to send with the boy three bullets. He left only an hour after he had arrived, and continued on his path. This time no running was required, though, and so he strode along the tracks, as midday turned to afternoon.

    He soon realized that the tracks were leading nowhere, and he had no desire to head into the hills to the east of the city, so he instead turned towards the water, and the skyline of the city. The sun was dipping closer and closer to the skyscrapers, so he supposed that he would have to make his walk brisk.

    It was getting dark as he began to enter the city, and his young self became afraid of every corner. Despite his earlier self-encouragement, his walk was anything but brisk, every street corner serving as a resting point from which he could scout out path. His limited inventory made sure that he wasn’t actually tired, but he would sometimes breathe heavily to convince himself otherwise.

    Sometimes threats lie in places away from view, however, and so his periodic checks did not always reveal imminent threats, like the ghoul under the bus on Third. He was strutting down the sidewalk, pistol tucked tightly into his Vault-Tec belt. Aldous passed the bus, its red exterior faded and pinkish, and thought nothing of it. That is, until there began a growl, emanating from somewhere under the desecrated vehicle. It was low and rumbling, like an old man preparing to spit. Aldous turned around, already made timid by the sound, and waited on what was emerging from the shadows. An arm first appeared, and then the other, green-yellow and rotted. A head then appeared, blotchy and desiccated. Pulling itself by the pieces of rubble further out. Soon enough, the beast’s naked torso was exposed to the dying light, and the growl turned from a curious tone to a menacing one--the thing intended to devour Aldous, and he would do it soon.

    The kid took no time to begin his retreat, and began to run, hopping over the debris and ruined vehicles that covered the street. Screeching, the feral emerged fully from the bus, and began its chase. The ghoul’s clumsy state was a stroke of luck, and so the boy, not even a teen, was able to keep out of its reach, as it tripped repeatedly over the rubble lining the road. However, he was tired from his journey so far, and the destabilizing ripples of fear undermined his sturdy little legs; the ghoul was gaining on him.

    In a final attempt to escape the chase, he turned into a dark alley. Having probably been vibrant and ecstatic before the war, neon signs now lay next to rusted garbage cans and rotted wooden pallets. He ran between these, the beast hot on his tail. Its spindly fingers grasped for a handful of his overlong coat, and even as it missed, the momentum of its snatches kept it moving toward the frightened child.

    Aldous searched for somewhere to hide, somewhere the creature, whatever it was, couldn’t reach. Desperate, he slid on his little knee between the cold brick wall and a shipping pallet, tearing his pants on the asphalt as he went. Now that he needn’t run, he had no idea what to do--running had been his whole plan, even before he saw the ghoul. So he did what he assumed a grizzled hero of the wastes would, and reached for the fat pistol tucked in his belt.

    It was large, larger than his hand, and he could barely reach the trigger. Nevertheless, he pulled it up to the ghoul, just barely big enough to scratch at Aldous, but not reach him. And then he pulled the trigger.

    He didn’t know what he had expected it to be like, his first shot, but whatever the image in his head was, the heavy report of the pistol exceeded it. He was knocked back into the alley, out from under the pallet. When he stood up, he looked over the body of a ghoul, its head burst by the weight of the bullet.

    He continued on his way silently, perhaps slightly scarred by the last minutes of his life.

    ***

    The front gate, imposing despite its dilapidated state, reached far above his view. He had been led a few blocks in by one of the city’s guards, his bat and armor concealing his kind demeanor. The guard had introduced himself as a Mike, and offered to take Aldous to the front of the city. The kid graciously accepted, and was taken by the hand through the well-protected streets.

    He had been standing outside of the city for some time now, just looking at the sight. He hadn’t thought it possible for there to be such civilization out in the wastes, especially after the events of the day. Nevertheless, he entered, walking through the broken turnstile, and towards the steps that would give him his first view of the town.

    He stepped down the concrete steps, and then the green metal gangplank that led down to the markets. The place was bustling, as travellers and traders mingled with the established shopkeepers. Each individual haggle or conversation added to the drowning murmur of the marketplace, and Aldous was submerged.

    He wandered about the circular place, attempting to blend in. Had he been older or more important looking, perhaps someone would have noticed his outlier status. Then again, perhaps they never thought to check at their knee-level.

     

    It was past dark, and the city, barely lit by an eclectic mixture of neon and stadium lights, had lost some of its bustle. Unfortunately for the kid, this meant that he had nowhere to blend in, and so he stopped pacing.

    Aldous finally realized how hungry he was, at the tone of his stomach’s rumbling. He needed to eat, but he hadn’t the slightest idea where he could get a meal. Neither did he know what would constitute a meal out in the vicious wastes--at least that’s what Sven had told him. Craning his neck to the air, he read every sign, until he came to the middle. The smell of the noodles should have alerted him instantly, but the noodles didn’t smell quite like anything in the Vault, or food, to be exact. Nonetheless, he read the sign, and, seeing the word noodles, grew excited.

    Without any caps (seven had been all he had had), he would be unable to pay for them, and so he devised a plan. Now envisioning himself the Master Strategist, he crawled under the back gate.

    A bowl, small and faux wood, sat under the counter, still steaming. Submerged in a thin yellow broth, they were a holy grail to the starving boy, and he reached greedily for them. Pulling the bowl to his lips, the food was his...until the sound of angered hydraulics stomped his way. He looked up as the chef, hat still over his robotic head, treaded his way.

    “Mineeeeeee!” the chef droned, as if to prove his status as a robot. It’s clawed arms reached out to the boy, each of three fingers extending randomly in anger. The boy dropped the bowl back under the counter, and tripped his way back into the marketplace, stammering apologies.

    “Mineeeeeee!” the robot blurted again, picking up the bowl with both of its mandibled hands. Pulling it to his face, the chef poured the hot broth over the glass screen that covered its sensors. “Mm-mm good!” it exclaimed monotonously, forgetting the boy in its pleasure.

     

    Just as Aldous thought he was free from the robot’s persecution, a hand reached his shoulder, and pulled him from the dirt path he sat on.

    “Loitering and robbery. Punishment--expulsion,” said the man who grabbed him. He was armed with the regular garb of the city’s guards. His face showed only the slightest remorse, but he dragged the kid towards the entrance anyway.

    “Sorry kid, gotta do what I gotta do,” said the man, adjusting his catcher’s mask.

    Perhaps destiny was to blame, or else the kindness of a stranger. As Aldous was dragged up the gangplank, kicking and screaming, a voice from behind them spoke to the guard. It was low and dragging, reminiscent of the robot chef’s, but with underpinnings of a kind spirit. Perhaps the voice of a disenfranchised veteran, or else a synth detective.

    “He’s mine Frank,” the figure drawled.

    “You can’t do this shit Nick,” the guard replied, unrelenting, and now carrying Aldous in his arms.

    “Just let me keep him here, Frank. Where the hell is he gonna go with pants like that anyways?”

    Frank looked down at the boy, for the first time noticing their bright white shade and yellow stripes. He didn’t know exactly what the colors meant, but he had been told what to do with anyone who wore them. “They got them colors,” the head of the guard had said, “and you save ‘em. They’ve got connections.” So he dropped the kid on the green metal walkway.  

    Aldous didn’t know who the man was, though, and so approached him only hesitantly. As he neared him, he saw the synth’s scarred face under a ratty old fedora. The man, or whatever he was, took one metallic hand from his fair-colored trench coat and held it out. Aldous looked at the flitting eyes of the synth. Unsure of what this would amount to, the boy reached out his hand as well.

    Walking down the alleys of Diamond City, the synth looked down at the boy he led. The boy looked up too, and so the synth whispered,

    “Welcome to the wasteland kid...It’s a hell of a time.”

Comments

5 Comments
  • Sotek
    Sotek   ·  April 10, 2016
    It's nice to see how characters form and what makes them who they are.
    Way to go probs. Looking forwards to more.
  • ProbsCoolerThanYou
    ProbsCoolerThanYou   ·  April 8, 2016
    Thanks Lyall! Yeah, I'd say this is definitely getting off the ground.
  • Lyall
    Lyall   ·  April 7, 2016
    Nice! Can't wait to read more, not too many Fallout stories have gotten off the ground, but now they're picking up speed.
  • ProbsCoolerThanYou
    ProbsCoolerThanYou   ·  April 7, 2016
    Yes he has. Partly this is to shape how he becomes in the future, and to explain some of his quirks, but some of it is also because I didn't want a very long backstory--this is one of four characters' childhoods that I need to introduce. Just wait till th...  more
  • The Long-Chapper
    The Long-Chapper   ·  April 7, 2016
    Yay! The first of your NaNo. How exciting.  That kid has certainly gone through a lot in a very short amount of time. Looking forward to more.