The Long Road Home: A Fallout/WTNV Crossover Ch. 1

The Scientist

 

Nights in the Mojave were usually calm. Cool weather and the occasional caw of a four-eyed vulture were a nice change from the blistering heat and the war cries of a band of Legion assassins. It was moments like this that the citizens of the Mojave Wastelands enjoyed. Moments like this were a commodity that caravanners paid good money to armed guards to have during their travels. The stars, the wind, and maybe the occasional rustle of a mutated gecko foraging for food were worth it just to get a little peace.

It was nights like this that the Courier usually kept her Pip-Boy 3000’s radio off. Just the sound of her boots on the broken pavement. Her real name was unimportant and most didn’t care to ask, anyway. The only person who asked for her real name was since arriving in the Mojave was a doctor in Goodsprings that yanked a bullet out of her head. It was best that no one knew her real name anyway. Going by this nickname suited her, though. Couriers didn’t even use their real names when taking jobs. She was designated “Courier Six” by the Mojave Express and that’s the name she used for years after. Sometimes she shortened it to just “Six” or “The Courier”.

On nights like this, Six preferred to walk.

She had homes in New Vegas, Novac, and one out in a crater that she couldn’t talk about (for weird “sciency” reasons, she often said), but her motel room in Novac was usually where most found her. It was simple and so were the people of Novac. The people and the atmosphere were not the only reasons she lingered in Novac. Some folk in town said it looked like she was waiting for something, or someone. Some of the older citizens often asked Six, “Who ran off with your heart?” with a laugh which she ignored.

After Hoover Dam, and after the Bright Followers left for a second time, Novac grew slowly from a little “oasis” along the road into what counted as an actual town in the Mojave. The influx of tired soldiers passing through on their way back to California was a big boon for the town and it eventually became a somewhat-thriving community. The rumors of Deathclaws along the Long 15 still lingered and the battle-weary soldiers were not looking to fight anymore, so they took the long way. Bad for their tired legs, good for Novac.

The Second Battle of Hoover Dam had done a number on her. After letting the NCR iron out the details of annexation and corpse clean-up, Six semi-retired to Novac. “At least for now.” She often told herself. Six wasn’t one to stay settled down for long, but needed this rest. She felt she had explored all she could around the New Vegas area of the Mojave and wanted to see more. But she had seen more than most people would see.

Six had seen almost everything. Six had traveled the Mojave, been to almost all corners of it. She had been forced to go treasure hunting in a dead city for a madman. She had been to Zion and remembered it too fondly. She had been a lab rat for some “eccentric” scientists. She had traveled down the lonesome road. She still wanted to go farther out into the wastes and see what was there.

This was perfect timing, as an agent with the NCR asked her to do just that one day. It was the reason she was out here enjoying this wonderful evening. They were paying her good caps just to walk and report to them if she found anything interesting. She was glad she didn’t agree to be paid based on what she found, because so far all she had found was rocks, dirt, and various mutated desert fauna.

Six wasn’t entirely sure what the NCR really wanted her to find. The Mojave was filled with old world towns picked clean by prospectors or bandits just waiting to pick any traveler clean. She left Novac earlier that morning and walked south along the roads. She didn’t mind being a scout, as it sure beat being a soldier. She was a courier, just without the parcel. Or maybe the parcel was something metaphysical like discovery or some stupid thing like that.

“The road less traveled…” she murmured, as she walked down the road. She didn’t finish that statement when she noticed a turn-off on the road. Six knew she had been this way many times before and she knew this road wasn’t there last time she walked this way. In fact, as far as she knew, this road shouldn’t even have been there. It looked like any other road, as far as she knew, but the spirit of adventure often beckoned her into strange places. So, with a skip in her step, Six walked down the quite literal road less traveled.

Surprisingly, no one bothered her on this road. She wasn’t sure which road she was on, as most roads in the Wasteland looked the same. Six glanced at her Pip-Boy map and cocked an eyebrow. She thought it was quite strange that her map wasn’t showing anything. She tapped it a few times and the screen only flickered.

“Weird…” she mumbled, looking up at a broken, bent street lamp. “Though that word is used pretty loosely nowadays.” Six put her hands in her pockets and kept walking. Maybe there was another reason she had to leaving Novac. It wasn’t like she was waiting for someone. At least, that’s what she told anyone who asked. Luckily, no one really asked.

Six reached into her pack and pulled out her little canteen. She wasn’t sure how she acquired this canteen. It had the number 13 engraved on the side, but it was sturdy and it served her well. She looked up as she took a swig and smiled. The lights above sparkled in colors she hadn’t seen before. She had heard of something called “Aurora Borealis” and had seen a few old pictures of it, but the Mojave was too far south for anything like that to happen. So why was she seeing it now?

She didn’t notice her Pip-Boy flickering again. The lights were too entrancing. She hadn’t even noticed she walked off the road a little ways. Though not the most unusual thing she had ever seen in her travels, it was certainly interesting. She sometimes saw these lights over one of the abandoned stops along her walks. She wasn’t sure what it used to be, as the sign had fallen off years ago. But Six felt she understood what the lights meant, even if she wasn’t thinking about it.

Six left this mindset when she looked down for a moment and saw an old oak door. Seeing ruins of old houses along the roads wasn’t unusual, but she found it slightly amusing that only the door of this house survived the war. It just stood there, no house around it. No wood, no crumbled layout, just the door. She circled the door a few times and laughed again. She was actually quite surprised no one had come across this door before. Because if they had, they would be thinking the same thing she was at that moment.

Six pressed the tip of her index finger against the door and pushed it, waiting for the satisfying “WHOMP” sound it would make as it fell to the ground. Six was taken slightly off guard when she noticed it didn’t budge an inch. She scratched her chin a bit. There was no doorframe or hinges, so she wasn’t sure how this door was staying up. Though not the strangest thing she had ever encountered in her journeys, it was certainly something to ponder.

“Maybe…” she mumbled, circling the door again. “…maybe it’s been here so long, it’s sunk into the ground.” Six laid flat on the ground and tried to examine the door’s bottom. As far as she could tell, the door hadn’t sunk into the ground. It looked like any old door one could just open and walk through. The wood didn’t looked warped from years of being exposed to the sun like most of the doors Six had seen, and it still showed no signs of falling over. It looked like it was just there to be there.

It was at that moment, Six noticed the doorknob jiggling. The doorknob, though looking old, wasn’t chipping or losing its bolting like most doors were. Six stepped back, pulled out her pistol, Lil’ Devil, and aimed at the door. She wasn’t sure why she was doing this, but she could sense danger. As the door opened, her Pip-Boy started to flash again.

The door opened slowly, as if it were connected to a frame and hinges, and out stepped a man in a lab coat. He looked disheveled and panicked, as if he was eager to get through this door. He closed the door eagerly as a large “THUMP” sound came from the other side. He breathed heavily and pressed himself against the door. This man, who had an identification badge pinned to his coat that read “Carlos”, sank to the ground, not noticing Six or her gun.

The man, “Carlos”, looked to be of Hispanic descent with black hair that looked like it hadn’t been brushed in a while. He looked young, though had a few grey streaks on his temples. He was handsome, in a mysterious type of way, but he didn’t exactly run off with Six’s heart like a certain other man did upon first meeting. He pulled a strange rectangle device out of his lab coat pocket and pressed a few buttons. He murmured what sounded like; “I’ll try again in ten minutes” before putting it back in his pocket.

At that moment, “Carlos” looked up and noticed Six and her gun. He shrieked loudly and guarded his face. “Don’t shoot! I come in peace! I didn’t take your treasure! I was just examining it!”

Six noticed she still had her gun pointed at him and holstered it. Six approached him slowly and held her hand out. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She said, leaning down to help him up. “The way things are around here, it’d be crazy not to draw first.”

“Carlos”, once he stopped panicking, unshielded his face and looked Six over. She was of average build, if not somewhat hip heavy, and wore a tan jacket with almost matching greyish pants and boots. Desert nights get cold, so he understood why she wore these. Her black hair, almost the same color as his without the grey on the temples, was shiny and placed in a messy bun on the back of her head. He couldn’t tell what color her eyes were. “Carlos” propped himself against the oak door and took Six’s hand. Using the door as leverage and with Six’s help, “Carlos” stood up. He dusted himself off and looked around.

“More desert…not surprising.” He mumbled. “Most of the doors lead to some kind of desert. At least this time there was no singing munchkins.”

Six cocked an eyebrow and put her hand on her hip. “You…came from that door!” she shouted, pointing to the door.

“Carlos” looked behind himself and then back at Six. “Yes, I did.” He answered, as if that was the standard answer for coming through a door to nowhere. He walked past Six, as if she wasn’t even there, and took out the rectangle again, along with another device. He pushed a few buttons on the rectangle and held it to his mouth.

“Log Entry #45: Concerning the oak door phenomenon, I have come through another door into another desert. There is only one that I see, but I’m pretty sure there another somewhere nearby. I’m also picking up strange amounts of radiation in this desert, far more than one would deem healthy, but I seem to be alright. The last door took me to a very horrible place and I’d rather not discuss it in detail. Note to future self: Next time one of the citizens of a city say don’t touch the sacred temple treasure: DO NOT TOUCH THE SACRED TEMPLE TREASURE! I was lucky to find another door when I did. Sometimes, there are lots of doors, when most of the time, there is only one other. So, my hypothesis about at least two existing in each universe might be correct. It might take some further study, though. These doors lead to a seemingly infinite number of different universes; just like that woman in the blue old-timey dress told me a few doors ago. More on that later, though.”

“Carlos” pressed a red button on his rectangle and shoved it back into his pocket. He noticed Six staring at him and cleared his throat. “Oh, yes…sorry, I forgot you were here. I’m Carlos.” Carlos, now that Six was sure this was his name, held his hand out and shook hers. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

Six nodded and looked at him closely. “Courier Six. But most just call me Six. Where are you from, Carlos?” she asked.

Carlos looked around and then back at Six. “Well, that’d take too long to explain. Is everyone named with numbers in this world?” he asked, examining the landscape.

Six shook her head, though not sure what he meant by “this world”. “No, I’m a Courier with the Mojave Express. Kind of a free-lance agent, anyway. Couriers go by numbers, and mine is six. So, people usually just call me Six. It’s easier that way. I only use my real name when I sign papers.”

Carlos looked even more confused now. “Mojave Express? Is that some kind of delivery service?” he asked, examining an agave plant.

“Yes, in a way. We deliver all over the desert. I’ve been everywhere at least once, I believe.” Six seemed pretty sure of herself and sat down on a rock. “Well, except around here. I was hired by the NCR to do some scout work. Ever since they took Hoover Dam, they’ve been sending scouts all over the place.”

Carlos looked up from the rock he was examining. “Hoover Dam? So, I’m at least in Nevada, so…” Carlos’s unsure expression slowly changed into a big grin and he jumped for joy, clicking his heels together as he jumped. Six watched this with an unsure look on her face. “I must have made it back to my world!” Carlos grabbed Six and danced around with her. It wasn’t so much dancing as it was just twirling around. “I knew I’d eventually find my way back! Now, all I have to do is find a way back to Night Vale and I’ll finally be home! I can’t wait to see Cecil!” Carlos stopped twirling and looked at the dizzy courier. “Can you direct me to the nearest bus station? I can pay for my own way back, I just need directions!”

The big smile on Carlos’s face didn’t last long. Six just stared at him. “Bus…station?” she asked, looking around. She knew what a bus was, and she knew what a bus station was. There were plenty of bus stops in Freeside, but a bus that worked or hadn’t been hollowed out as someone’s home was a rare, pretty much nonexistent, sight.

Carlos sighed. “Alright, how about a car? Do you have a car? I’ll pay for gas, I just need to get back!”

Again, Six just stared at him. Carlos’s good feeling was slowly turning into a bad, pit of the stomach type of sick feeling. Six put her hands in her pockets and shrugged. “I’ve seen plenty of cars, but none of them are what you would call ‘working’. Cars haven’t been a viable mode of transportation for hundreds of years. I mean, I’ve seen a few working out in California, but they don’t go too far. Most people use caravans and wagons to get around. Or, like most including myself, they just hoof it.” Six pointed to her feet when she said that.

Carlos thought for a moment and looked at his rectangle again. “No Wi-Fi signal; I’ve only encountered this a few times.”

“What’s a ‘Wi-Fi’?” Six asked.

As if being asked if the Earth is round, Carlos looked at Six with shocked expression that reminded Six of a Brahmin about to be shot. It was at that moment that Six noticed Carlo’s strange rectangle had a screen on it not unlike her Pip-Boy. “Hey, what model of Pip-Boy is that?” Six asked, pointing to Carlos’s rectangle.

“Pip-Boy?” He asked, looking over his rectangle. “This is a Samsung Galaxy S5. I just bought it a few months ago. What’s a Pip-Boy?”

Six lifted her wrist and showed Carlos the device on her wrist. Carlos examined the device, twisting Six’s wrist around and nodding while mumbling to himself. She watched him as he pressed buttons, fiddled with the locking mechanism, and twisted her wrist some more. Scared he was going to pull off her arm, Six slowly took her hand back. “I’m not surprised you’ve never seen one, but I’m a little fascinated that you’ve never heard of a Pip-Boy.” said Six, rubbing her wrist. “Almost everyone’s heard of a Pip-Boy. You see them a lot on people who used to live in vaults.”

Carlos just blinked. “Vaults? Like a bank vault? Or some kind of archive?”

Six blinked. “I guess so; I’ve only seen a few of them. How can you not know what a vault is?”

“How can you not know what Wi-Fi is?” Carlos retorted.

“Fair enough, I’ll give you that.” Six walked over to the rock that Carlos had been examining and sat on it. He looked like he was trying to stop her from doing so. “If you’re worried about radiation, don’t be. Everything is a little irradiated. So, you came through that weird door. Did the Brains at Big MT send you?”

Carlos found a long near the rock and carefully sat on in. “The What at Where?” he asked, eyebrow cocked.

“Well, I assumed, since you literally came from nowhere, that something exploded at Big MT and what was left landed here.” Six pointed to the door. It was still standing there; as if it was listening to them talk. “They think they conditioned me to not talk about that place, but they’re kind of…well, they’re the dumbest geniuses you’ll ever meet. That is, if you ever have the misfortune of meeting them.”

Carlos rubbed his forehead and looked around. “Well, this obviously Earth and this is obviously the United States, or at least some equivalent of it.”

Six laughed softly. “These states haven’t been a united anything in over two hundred years. There are territories and what not, but nothing resembling what it used to be.”

Carlos started to shake. “What year is it?” he asked, dropping his rectangle.

“It’s late 2281, my good man.” Six announced, as if she was happy to say that.

The man calling himself Carlos fell off his stump and to his knees at that point. His entire body shook and he glanced up at Six again. His eyes, Six thought, were the same color as the bark on the trees in Zion. She decided to go there again soon, just to check on things. “How…” he mumbled after a long silence. “…how long have I been gone? My phone says it’s only been a month but how could over two hundred years have already gone by?” Carlos stood up and grabbed Six by her coat and shook her. “WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?!”

Six pushed Carlos away and dusted herself off. “Madness is a word that gets a lot of use nowadays, but panicking isn’t going to help you. I can, though. But you’ll have to calm down first!”

After a few minutes of heavy breathing, Carlos got a hold of himself. He sat back down on the log and let out a long puff of air. “Alright, Carlos, get it together. You’re a scientist and there is a rational, completely not insane explanation for all of this. Be reasonable! You graduated at the top of your class for crying out loud! If I can handle the Glow Cloud, the multi-colored Helicopters, the ‘Angels’, and being chased by those StrexCorp drones across a desert wasteland than I can certainly handle being over two hundred years in…”

It got quiet again. All that was heard was the howl of a distant coyote. Six really wanted to feel sympathetic to this man. He seemed nice enough and didn’t look like the usual crackpot she often found wandering in the desert spouting nonsense. There was no rhyme or reason behind the things this man was saying. But when it came to the Mojave, there was rarely rhyme or reason for anything. She had certainly seen her share of strange things, but this door that produced a panicking scientist was pretty high on the list. She couldn’t say he topped it, but he was high up there.

“Listen, you said something about different worlds and stuff? Can’t you just go back through that door and back to…wherever it is you came from?” Six asked, not fully understanding what she was saying.

Carlos shook his head. “No, no, I’d rather not do that. The doors are one way, it seems. If I go back through that door, it just goes back to the previous world. Trust me, I’ve tried. I need to find another door and just keep going until I find my original door or some other way home.”

“Yeah, because that makes perfect sense.” Six whispered, hoping Carlos couldn’t hear. Six put her hand on Carlos’s shoulder and tried to smile. “Well, why don’t you tell me about your ‘world’ and I’ll see if I can help without getting the floating brains involved.”

Not sure what she was talking about, Carlos just nodded. “Well, the best place to start would be when I first arrived in Night Vale two years ago. I came with my team to research the town. It’s quite a strange place, let’s just say, and it’s the most scientifically interesting place in the country. They always tell you never let your personal feelings get in the way of progress, but that’s exactly what happened. What was supposed to be just a yearlong project turned into…well…it turned into home.”

Six sighed and nodded. “I hear you there.” She pulled her pack close to her and opened it. “Want something to drink? I have Nuka-Cola, Sunset Sarsaparilla, some moonshine my friend Cass made for me, and some purified water.” Six held up a clear bottle and Carlos reached for it. He didn’t open it, he just cradled it. “I felt the same way when I first came to Novac. The town, admittedly, is a dump. I never in a million years would have imagined staying there for any reason. But now, whenever I leave out for some type of journey or a job, it’s all I can think about. I sometimes wonder if he came back and if he’s posted in that damn dinosaur like when we met.”

“Who?” asked Carlos, opening his bottle of water.

Six snapped out of her day dream and shook her head. “Oh, just a friend I made. A close friend…” Six blushed and then looked back at Carlos. “Now, how about we get off his cold ground and get a move on?”

Carlos sipped his water and put the cap back on. “Move on? To where?” he asked.

“Well, I think the first thing we should do is find another one of these doors.” said Six, pointing to the still stationary oak door.

Carlos nodded and picked up his rectangle. Carlos seemed to have made a friend. He was surprisingly good at that for reasons he didn’t know. He put his rectangle back in his lab coat pocket and watched as Six pressed some buttons on her Pip-Boy. She walked over to the door and circled it a few times. The Pip-Boy flashed from amber to green a few times, though Six didn’t seem to notice. “We should probably head back toward Novac. From there, we could probably get some kind of information over the ham radios about any randomly appearing Old World doors.”

“Old world?” Carlos asked.

Six didn’t answer. She was too busy fiddling around with her Pip-Boy. “Damn map...” she mumbled. “For some reason, my map screen isn’t working. It’s been acting up since I first turned down this road. You know, it’s funny, but I’ve been traveling the Mojave for a while and I felt like I’ve been down every road in the New Vegas area, but this area is pretty weird. A few moments after I stepped onto this new road, my radio function starts acting up.”

Carlos found it amusing that Six wandered over toward a rock some yards behind the oak door and held her hand into the air. Carlos had no idea what this world was, but his scientific mind made him want to know more about it. While he didn’t doubt his new friend’s claims, he doubted that this world was indeed his. It was a feeling he often got when he was a child and his family went on vacation; he never felt truly comfortable in a hotel room at the beach. It was a mixture of anxiousness and security. While he knew the hotels were friendly, it didn’t have that secure feeling his room had. When his family moved, he knew this new place was home, but it didn’t feel like home until much later. He had the same feeling when he first came to Night Vale two years ago.

But he knew where his home was. He knew where his home was going to be, which made moving easier as a child. But this place didn’t have that feeling. It was a weird out-of-place feeling that not even Night Vale gave him, and to him that was saying something. He had felt that way in the other “worlds” as well.

Carlos watched in odd amusement as Six wandered around the area of the door with her hand stuck in the air. He thought she looked like a radio antenna, but all he heard was static, but he noticed something weird when she walked away from the door. Her Pip-Boy would stop flashing green and amber and start flashing purple. He wasn’t sure what functions the Pip-Boys had, and he made a mental note to ask Six if he could examine it more closely later, but he didn’t think purple was a color scheme option.

“Wait!” Carlos shouted, running toward Six. Six stopped in her tracks and watched as Carlos once again took her arm and pointed it in different directions. He walked her over to a big rock and stopped. “No, that’s not it.” He mumbled. He walked Six toward a dying cactus and pointed her hand toward it and shook his head. It wasn’t until Carlos walked with Six away from the oak door and toward the road that something started to happen. Six looked up at her Pip-Boy in amazement.

“It’s never shown that color before!” she shouted as Carlos walked her onto the pavement. A musical tone that Six had never heard before came through the static of the radio and she watched as Carlos’s smile spread across his face. “Please, please, please…” Carlos pleaded, as they walked further down the road. A soothing, somewhat comforting, voice came onto the radio. To Carlos’s astonishment and Six’s confusion, it wasn’t Mr. New Vegas and he wasn’t announcing the news.

“A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome to Night Vale…”