#sacristan haidinger

[purkinje-effect]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 96: Lucky You

Table of Contents Third Instar, Chapter 27. Go to previous. Go to next. CWs: fictional pharmacology, misgendering and social dysphoria, continued radiation sickness sequelae, minor hygiene and sanitary squick, awkward gender navigation, underweight mention, minor self-injury mention, drug use.

“Funny, how it’s easier to see / the forest for the trees / when winter steals the leaves.” -- Shayfer James, “Godspeed”

'Choly stirred the glass mug with a swizzle stick. His lips pursed ever so slightly as he lifted the stick in intervals, only to continue stirring. He took a moment to readjust the sash of his robe. Left undisturbed, a visible separation had formed in the liquid. Atop a translucent substance floated a dark thin oil, bitingly coppery and leathery. At the bottom settled pale solids and a wad of delicate cotton scraps. Only once he decanted the inch of solution into a shot glass could he even faintly smell the ammonia which had produced this result.

Into a second shot glass, he poured the separated fluid over a coffee filter loaded with a mound of crushed coffee grounds and loose cigarette tobacco. The back of a spoon liberated lingering fluid from the filter's contents. He gathered the filter's edges with one hand, and carefully replaced it on the first shot glass. Then, he poured the increasingly fluorescent milky fluid over the filter for a second pass, and macerated the ashen grounds with the spoon to squeeze out every last drop. The pulpiness and coloration gave the impression he'd idly destroyed a highlighter.

"I know you've only just gotten situated, Mister Carey," Angel said.

He jerked in place and shoved the spoon through the filter, but managed to pull it away without spilling the solids into his concoction.

"Sorry, Sir," it continued. "Erm, hopefully you can find a stopping point? I just heard the plumbers. The initial system flush is complete. They should reopen the baths very soon."

"Bless you and your wonderful timing." Animate and wild-eyed, he repeatedly steadied himself to divide the substance into metered twin-barrel hypodermic doses. As he worked, he told the robot, "A few more minutes and I'm done. Words do not describe how badly I want to head over there."

"I've gathered your sundries, for when you're ready! We should hurry if we can. The lines will likely form quickly."

He tapped his nose and adjusted his glasses with that finger.

"I'll be quick. Quick and precise."

He brushed his fingertips across the five injectables, then reached for paper and pen for a note. The things I requested were for a batch of Daddy-O. I noticed you still store Med-X like we did downstairs. I stored these with them. Halfway through, he became more conscious and deliberate with his penmanship. I would prefer if you didn't sample them. Consider them intermediary for my whipping up what you really asked me for. He folded the note and stood to go stash the syringes in a Slocum's Joe tin with other injectable chems.

It's only fitting, he told himself smirking, to store something crafted with coffee in a coffee tin. He returned the MKX inside Angel. He found Bledsoe front-end with a patient, and waved to get his attention. The medic glanced up at him, and both he and the patient went quiet.

"Not to interrupt." He slipped the note onto Bledsoe's clipboard. "It's nothing urgent. Just thought you'd like proof I'm on task. Stepping out now."

"Music to my ears," Bledsoe told the patient with a chuckle.

On his way out the front door, Angel joined him toting a bulky, haphazard satchel it had fastened around and atop itself. It took all his composure to suppress the skip in his step, lest he dislocate or pull something between there and baths. He and Angel both struggled with the stairs, but the Mister Handy still spotted his descent to the lower level as best it could, since it could still walk itself down in whichever direction required with no loss of vision.

A cane would make this so much easier. Of course, regaining his orthotics would improve his mobility even more than a cane. …Any cane. Even a simple one.

They entered Anchor’s lobby and followed the halls back to the inn’s baths. Just as they were trying to identify those on the repair team, a lightly armored See’s guard arrived. She slouched at them.

“How come you’re already ready to go?” The young woman crossed her arms. “Hall ain’t said a word about reopening the showers.”

“Ha, yes.” A terse, toothless smile pricked at his cheeks, and he adjusted his Fashionable Glasses. She didn’t need to know he’d been sitting around the GCC all morning in his robe in anticipation of this very moment, or that Angel had been acting the part of a police scanner for developments. “I do look dressed like I’m expecting spa treatment, don’t I. Don’t think too much of it, officer. I’ve only needed to bathe going on four months now. I’m sure you understand how anxious I am to make use of the amenities once they’re repaired. You, ah. You’re here. That means something, then, doesn’t it?”

The See’s smacked her gum and cocked her jaw.

“Yeah. I was sent down here to check with the plumbers, if you gotta know.” She craned her head around the corner of the women’s side. “Hey, you interested in letting this old lady and her robot try ‘er out? You gotcha first willing test subjects.”

Various answers replied, some which seemed to know his individual by mere mention of a robotic companion. He stiffened, and pressed his palm against the cool curve of Angel’s chassis. His nerves doubled down into a full plaster smile. Something in his shoulder popped. He smiled harder. The See’s leaned against the doorway and grinned back at him.

“They’re sayin’ you can’t give that pile of scrap metal a bath, too.”

“Oh, Sir, I didn't intend to accompany you into the baths regardless. If that's all right.” It hemmed and fussed over the pack it had bundled, and produced towels and some toiletries for him. “Sir, it's exactly as I planned! I have your dirty laundry ready, Sir, and I'm most eager to head downstairs. I’ll keep my sensors attuned for you, Sir. I’ll come flying the moment you need me!”

She smacked her gum some more and wagged her thumb overhead at both doors.

“Pick a door, Methuselah.”

Angel's sensors flicked between the guard and its owner a few times. He twitched a pitiful, appreciative smile at him.

“Good luck, my friend.”

“Enjoy, Mister Carey!”

Angel pivoted and scampered off.

“Yes,” the guard murmured. “Enjoy, Mister Carey.”

“I promise not to use all the hot water,” he muttered offhand in passing. He continued muttering under his breath as he rushed through the other doorway and picked the closest stall to the door. Drawing the curtain, he exhaled hard as he identified the pungent cutting stink of fresh bleach, but he smiled to himself in gratitude that it didn't seem like it masked whether any sourness or rot lingered. Methuselah… If only she knew-- No, inconsequential. Just let it go and relax.

He disrobed and turned on the water. Without his sunglasses to dampen the chroma, he kept his eyes shut as much as possible. The showerhead burbled for a few seconds before the hiss of its spray steadied. Angel had brought him some things from the GCC’s stockroom, and he knew he’d have to reimburse Bledsoe for them. The moment the water showed signs of warming, he stepped in and let it stream over him. After a while, he adjusted the temperature, erring on the side of slightly too warm. He poured out some Sheldon shampoo[96-1] from the trial size bottle and massaged his scalp into a gentle lather. His eyes shut, and his mind melted into soft focus.

Leave it to Sheldon not to petrify or go rancid with age. I wonder if it's shortcut for anything…

‘Choly knew his work order hadn't called for Daddy-O specifically, and he certainly hadn't expected to start with it of all things, but hell if he wouldn't need it. He’d meant every word of his note. He wished he could have started with simple, straightforward products. Med-X, Mentats, Stimpaks… Yes, that did put a time constraint on it, didn’t it? Sticks would insist that they replenish the Melancholia before they headed out. Realistically, they couldn’t reestablish the Blood Drive before they left, but ideally, they could do so once they returned. They both would rest easier if they could secure more donors than Sticks in the future.

He rinsed his hair. Shampooing a second time, he really put his fingernails into it.

A suggestion twinged in the back of his mind: Why not ask the Clark sisters if they can help source blood?

He flinched as his nails grazed too roughly. Soap stung his scalp and the corners of his squinted eyes.

Once he’d rinsed his hair, and then rinsed his eyes, he unwrapped the bar of soap and grabbed for his washcloth. As he worked at scrubbing himself down, he slowed down a bit, and took especial care with his left arm. He bent down and forward out of the water, to peer at the drain, and hemmed at the visible mess of hair in the floor.

My age is catching up to me. RadAway can only undo so much. His mouth skewed as he continued to slowly rub at his chest. Definitely not the worst thing this tile sees today.

Even if they couldn't convince Bledsoe to let him borrow his phlebotomy equipment, they could still carry on like they had at Lockreed for one more batch if they absolutely had to. Not that Sticks would be thrilled, mind you, but at least Sticks had amassed all the other necessary ingredients.

Am I being selfish, for asking to come along? I'm not really contributing anything to the entourage. I'd just be another mouth to feed, and another head to keep track of. Angel won't allow us to get separated, but even if I would consider it, the only souls at the Lane that I would entrust with Angel's well-being will all be crammed into a royal blue Chryslus Coupe. I should stay behind and help the nursing staff watch the GCC in Bledsoe's absence, shouldn't I? I could even get a head start on those chems.

But no, he reminded himself that Sticks, charismatic as ever, had convinced him he had a lot in common with Bledsoe: his breaks are always more of a shuffling of projects, never fully setting everything down. Even if 'Choly didn't help with the caravan directly, he and Bledsoe both needed to get out of the house and decompress. This would be a vacation for 'Choly, too.

Still, he couldn't shake worrying for Angel's safety. The Fog would be thinner, with less risk of weather complications, but pockets of weak magnetic fields floated all throughout the Hinter. He could only hope that, in a worst case scenario, Haidinger might grant him some degree of extended access to the robotics workstation.

He jerked the dial to cold to jolt distressing thoughts. Breathing heavy, he eventually eased the water back up to lukewarm.

"Buddy!" A man rapped on the stall wall. "You drowning in there or what?"

His larynx snagged.

"Yesyes, I'm quite all right." He cleared his throat when his voice broke. "I'll be right out."

Dejected, he eyed the bottle of conditioner on the stepstool.

Next time. Tomorrow even, perhaps.

He let the water run over his scalp for another minute before relenting for the day. He steadied himself on the wall of the stall while he toweled his hair. He patted himself dry, then wrapped up in the towel and tied the thin cotton robe over that. Slipping his glasses back on, he emerged with his toiletries and shuffled over to squeeze in at the nearest available sink.

The baths had filled up more quickly than he'd expected. Or maybe, he had taken that much longer than he thought. Probably both.

He rationed out the barest smidge of toothpaste onto a handcrafted toothbrush with a reed handle, wet it, and, as he brushed, tried to reassure himself that it had to be brand new.

That batch of Daddy-O, though. He still couldn't believe his Luck, that he could yield any new skills or comprehension from a single sitting with the MKEXCEED Papers, let alone produce an elusive and highly desirable prewar chem on the first try. He hoped the efficacy of the drug could be trusted, but it would do in a pinch.

Skimming the Merrick had gotten him nowhere brainstorming what might interest Bledsoe. Just about anything remotely interesting hit the roadblock of scarcity. Patent precursors only presented half the trouble, at that: so many more constituents would either have long since deteriorated if he could even get his hands on them, or synthesizing them would require sophisticated equipment on par with that of a facility like the Deenwood Compound. A pharmacopeia like the Merrick could provide only so much chemistry data, especially one published at a time when the country hadn't yet suffered from rationing or shortages. The reference text catalogued straightforward monographs using industry-accessible prewar chemical compounds, and nothing more.

The MKX, on the other hand, chronicled history and development for hundreds of compounds, dozens of on- and off-label applications, postwar-inclusive contraindications, and where applicable, means of manufacture. Many chems' entries cross-referenced other sections of the text, as the volume of continuous feed paper had been organized into units based on the chems' properties. It comprised thirteen sections over ten units; while seven of the biggest units referred to the traits of SPECIAL, the largest was of course reserved for the eponymous X family.

I wonder how much I contributed to the selection on cyclomorphine. Following the logic that the chemists that contributed to this text would have excelled in their given specialty, what quality did Deenwood believe I excelled at engineering? Making everyone around me hurt as much as possible?

He still couldn't shake the tactile sensation of trying to skim a fifteen-hundred page text that had been printed double-sided on continuous feed paper and snapped into a binder without perforating the pages. He'd done his best not to waste time right then peeling the feed margin off every single fore-edge… but he'd certainly gotten distracted aweing over the seemingly impossible collation magic of such a mammoth print job.

He expectorated and sighed, continuing to brush. He noted a bit of blood in the sink basin, but RadAway recovery aside, he expected as much after not having had a toothbrush for months.

He rinsed his brush, then his mouth. He gargled, and didn't even notice himself swallow instead of spitting it out. He pocketed his glasses and splashed his face again, then dried off with the edge of the towel at his hip. He glanced up to find anyone who'd noticed his presence was doing everything they could to ignore him. They all faced away from him, even where the bath, showers, and urinals seemed more difficult to use. He still decided to use the facilities before he left.

Thank God they've been keeping up on the toilet paper.

When he reemerged, there were no free sinks. He slouched, but the grievance of his back and shoulder corrected his posture before he could even make his way out the door. Handwashing just wasn't worth everyone else's discomfort causing him discomfort. He promised himself he'd at least wash them before he ate anything.

The See's guard managed a hefty line by the time he squeezed by her. He shook his head to himself in chagrined recognition. Even while relaxing with overdue basic care, he had found himself retracing the day up to that point without even noticing. He forbid himself to resume the thought.

He returned to his room and untied the robe to free the towel. Then, he sat on the end of the bed and towel dried at his hair. A lyrical murmur followed while he trimmed his nails: the pair of clippers Angel had found were a miracle compared to having used the Komàr to peel back the overgrowth for months. As was typical of his winter, the officer's gloves may have steadied his hand, but they had done nothing to prevent his fingertips from looking like he'd been peeling potatoes drunk with a paring knife.

Angel is as resourceful and observant as any of them, even when it isn't operating at its best.

His throat snagged again.

"Don't worry, my friend. We'll get you well."

Soon after, impatient rapping sounded against the door. He shut his robe, towel draped around his neck, and eased open the door. Fresnel stood before him in a mesh blouse and lace skirt, her white embroidered stole doubled around her neck as a cowl. She eyed him, gripping one of Angel's tendrils in one fist and a pair of walnut-sized armillaria in the other.

"What is the meaning of this," she blurted out. "Why are you two separated!"

"Thank you for escorting Angel, but everything is just fine. You knew right where I was, didn't you?"

"Of course, Sir! I hate to have upset the Hierosacristan, but at least I have your laundry mostly finished! There are a few more effects that haven't yet dried. It's not long now." When Fresnel relinquished it, Angel rushed into the room to begin unpacking its satchel on the bed. "I'm always so pleased how effective the Lane's laundry methods are. They've truly innovated in many ways to compensate for their lack of technology!"

"The trouble is you didn't know where it was," Fresnel growled, through a smile. She stepped in and shut the door, then leaned against it with her arms crossed. "You know what a risk that was, to let that Core out of your sight."

He bristled, but did his best to disregard her acuity, instead scrutinizing Angel's fresh laundry with a beaming grin.

"Even if someone were to figure out that Angel has the Core, it has a hidden compartment. And even if you knew how to get inside Angel, you wouldn't find where that is."

"Is that a challenge?"

He cleared his throat.

"Not as such. I take it you came looking for me because Haidinger is ready for us finally."

"I did."

"I'm not going anywhere until I'm dressed. Not making that mistake twice in a week. I don't mind you staying in the room, but I need a few minutes."

"I can wait in the upper level lobby. Don't worry about getting presentable. Be comfortable. We have much to take care of."

"I, yes."

He fumbled an exact response, and she let herself out of the room. The moment the door clicked shut, Angel swept in to commence assisting its owner.

"Do forgive me, Sir. It was my idea that we divide and conquer. I didn't think there might be any cause for alarm."

He slipped on the Vault Suit for simplicity. He couldn't pinpoint why the garment felt off. It wasn't too stiff, and had not shrunken. He dismissed the discomfort: I just got too used to how it felt wearing it four months straight. It probably feels wrong because it's clean now.

"No apologies. I wouldn't have anything clean to wear without your efforts. Nothing happened. Nothing was likely to happen."

Angel handed him one piece of Surgical Leather at a time. The laundry methods the Mister Handy had applied had slipped the fan lacing's preset tension, so they had to work together to readjust the fit both for sizing and stability. He noticed that the straps were mostly tightened one or more notches past how he had initially worn the orthotics, but he did not mention it.

"Funny," Angel eventually commented. "Funny how implausible some things seem to be."

He sat up from brushing out his hair, cataracted eyes wide.

"Angel, what are you talking about."

"I'm sure it's nothing. You know me. I worry about simply everything."

"Please tell me. You can talk to me."

"The Hierosacristan does know how to open my compartment. I can't tell you whether she knows about whatever secret compartment you mentioned--and I imagine that's due to some kind of purposeful programming blind spot--but there's no question that you should probably discount my storage as inscrutable security, especially since I seem to have misplaced my attachments."

His officer's gloves and the dampness of his hair facilitated him pinning up his streaked locks. He managed a loose french twist with only four bobby pins. As he returned his sunglasses to his face, Angel presented him his Pip-Boy. He latched it back on, and held the power button so it could resync with his biometrics. He smiled at his robot.

"You haven't misplaced them. This place disarms its patrons. Even you." He let go of his knees and pushed off to stand. He took the lead on their way out, and patted its chassis. "And I'm not concerned. If she wanted to take something out of you, you would have noticed her removing it from you."

"Like you said, I'm sure it's nothing."

"It's nothing. I would like another Mentat before we head out, please."

"Sorry to hear your headache is still holding fast." It gave him the tin, and he handed it back after shaking one from it. "At least there is medication that eases them."

"It's more that I anticipate other headaches," he admitted, as he chewed the tablet. "Hopefully Fresnel and Haidinger will be in good spirits."

"We'll have a grand day of it, Sir. No worries!"

He gave it a small smile.

"We'll do our best, anyway."

They rejoined Fresnel in the lobby, where she then escorted them to an employees restricted hallway. Haidinger awaited them there.

“There you are.” He gave them a sour look with outstretched palms. “I have two ground rules. First, the Core.”

“Right, yes.”

‘Choly turned to open up Angel. He stopped mid-action, however. Fresnel opened her side-bag and produced the STAR Core herself. She handed it over to him with somewhat indifferent deference. His gaze shifted to meet Angel’s, and he pressed his lips together.

“And the other?” Fresnel asked, of equal impatience.

Haidinger did not answer her until he’d stored the Core away safely in his own bag.

“It’s eleven now. You must be done before three.”

“Four hours?” ‘Choly blurted out. “Just a scan might--"

“--be plenty,” Fresnel said. She quirked her lips at him. “Come along. We’ll see how much we can accomplish today.”

Haidinger turned away from them and removed one glove. He pressed his hand against a region of the wall, seemingly to feel for a certain panel. Eventually, a section of the wall inset a few inches, becoming a pocket door which rolled inside the wall. He looked over his shoulder to them as he put his glove back on.

“Don’t make me regret trusting you both.”

“Are you not coming with us?” ‘Choly asked.

“I have other matters to attend to. I cannot be absent for hours without someone questioning my whereabouts.”

He nodded vaguely, and turned to follow the Hierosacristan before the door could shut on them.

“He won’t admit it,” she told them with lyric, “but the main reason is, he thinks it’s likely to be boring.”

The narrow corridor quickly took a corner turn. After that point, fluorescent lights illuminated their way. The two squinted. Fresnel tucked her armillaria into her belt. Once ‘Choly’s eyes adjusted, he took in the dense, exposed wiring, conduits, and pipes of the utility corridor’s walls and ceiling. They eventually reached a dim room where a mainframe computer lined the walls.

‘Choly’s jaw dropped as he took it all in. Large-scale computers weren’t all too uncommon, but this one seemed so out of place, all things considered, for it to be so large. He hadn’t expected the maintenance area to share a space with the mainframe, and he certainly hadn’t expected more of the mainframe than a terminal computer.

“Can you see to work?” Fresnel asked him.

He stood before a pair of secondary terminals, pressing the back of his hand against the underside of his nose at the smell of metallic dust.

“Hm? It’s too dark to work by the light, and I don’t think it’s dark enough to work by armillary.”

“Give me a moment.” She vanished down a second corridor.

“I suppose I could get in position, Sir.” Angel walked itself up onto the platform of the robotics workbench, located in the corner directly beside the two terminals. “Oh, it’s going to be just wonderful to get a once-over from you. I dearly appreciate the attention.”

“Of course. You know I’d do just about anything for you.” It’s my fault you’re all banged up in the first place.

The fluorescent hum intensified, and the brightness of the space followed suit soon after. He took a seat and leaned over the arms of the workbench to plug Angel in. Then, he sat back and turned to the terminal and plugged his Pip-Boy keyprong into it.

“See you in a few hours, Angel.”

“Just a quick nap, ha-ha!”

Once the Mister Handy had powered down, he got to work. He started with preliminary diagnostic scans. Tethered to his place, he scanned the space for any tools he would need to fix Angel’s thruster. He quickly got lost in the size of the mainframe. He shook his head of it, and stood to lean over to open Angel’s compartment. He pushed his effects aside to reach the false bottom compartment. His heart stuttered with his hands on the lid. He gently pulled out the officer’s coat, just enough to unfold one end. His eyes widened to feel something stiff in the fabric: not a decoy object, but a STAR Core. He tucked it back inside, and sat back down with an even greater unease.

He told Angel, “I should have brought something to read."

A few minutes later, Fresnel walked back through with a clipboard, engrossed in the walls. ‘Choly presumed she was holding another conversation with the architecture, and left her to her work at first.

“Hierosacristan,” he hesitated. She stopped pacing about. “Would it be all right if we talked?”

“Did you have something in mind?”

“I don’t want to distract you from your studies. If it’s not a good time--"

“--I can make time.” She finished her train of thought and invited discussion with an attentive glance tossed his way. She turned a fresh page and continued. “This sounds important.”

“We haven’t really gotten a chance to talk in private just yet.” His ears rang, to have stumbled into the timing of it. He thought again to how his shower went that morning. “You disclosed something quite personal about yourself before I left Ant Lane in October. I don’t think that anyone would know that about you, without you telling them. I-- I don’t feel convincing. How do you manage it?”

She stopped sketching long enough to process the nature of the conversation he endeavored to have.

“Nonsense,” she snipped, not irate but rather dismissive. “Even if that were true, what does it matter? You know what you are. Atom knows what you are. You sound like you yourself think your identity is some kind of pretense. Some kind of act.”

“Still,” he insisted. “You’re very convincing. I’ve had trouble believing that you’re anything like me. I’m not asking you to prove anything, though, I swear. I do believe you. I suppose… I’m envious that, if you’ve got to be transsexual, your genetics are still extremely in your favor. Forget I said anything. You probably never have to deal with people questioning or misunderstanding you like that. And you probably never deal with feeling gross for how you are.”

For some time, she resumed intently annotating on her clipboard. He sat on his hands to keep from fidgeting with his finger joints. She eventually let out a long rough exhale.

“Why would you think I never struggle with either of those things? Anyone can have those feelings and experiences on occasion, no matter how they are.”

“Well, how do you deal with it, then?”

“I’ve embraced the things that I like best about myself. I’m not around other people long enough for it to really matter whether they understand who I am. It’s gotten easier in the time since I’ve become a hierosacristan. Most Atomites recognize my features and my armor, and know who I am by my status. Still, for how honored I am to be able to wear my travel gear, there are times I like to wear something less high-profile. I needn't wear my devotion to have it. And I needn't wear specific things to justify that I'm a woman.”

“Well said.” He got a bit distant inside himself, folding his hands in his lap with a faint smile. “People like us aren’t anything new, you know. There were a few medical procedures available before the war for things of that nature, but they were costly and not well refined. I’d be surprised if any of that science has developed further since that time. I fear I missed out.”

“This is all because you don’t think it’s possible I’ve pursued medical treatments?” She flustered, and had to sit on the side of a mainframe section. “I’ve had some access to what’s called an Auto-Doc--but it’s dangerous to reach, and I’ve only gone to it three times in my life.”

He picked up his jaw to stare with indignity.

“Bullshit. Auto-Docs couldn’t do that.” When she shrank back at the accusation, he dialed himself back to mere disbelief. “Something that could cure me of my me, I’d risk my life for it! It’s not somewhere only Daughters can go, is it? Or at least, only Atomites?”

“--It is. That’s right.” She stared off at the polished concrete a moment.

She had a reason for guarding a straight answer, one ‘Choly couldn’t guess. He'd become an Atomite in a heartbeat if it meant being able to access such a treatment, but she hadn't meant it. When she found him eyeing her expectantly, trying to parse what she could be avoiding saying, she smiled and patted the clipboard in her lap.

“I’m woman enough to be a Daughter,” she told herself, her enthusiasm swelling gradually as she spoke. “I’m not the only Daughter like myself, either. The Gift seems somewhat genetic, and associated more often with this type of body. Oh, do tell me whether you too can hear the Granite!”

“What, I, no. No, I can’t.” He hemmed. “I’m sure that’s something only women can do.”

Her enthusiasm faded in an instant, and she froze in place. She abruptly stood and excused herself to continue studying in the corridor.

“Thank you for turning the light back on,” he called off after her.

She eventually replied, “De rien.”

Before ‘Choly could get tangled up in the taste of both feet in his mouth, the robotics workbench clicked and hummed. Its arms engaged and lowered. He checked the scan progress on the terminal. Primary data sector integrity looked to have recovered to 96%, but memory integrity still sat at 84%. Several main systems had gone offline due to hardware malfunctions, not programming. He drummed his fingers on the short desktop in thought. He input the commands for the hydraulic arms to cradle Angel’s chassis and lift it up.

“I guess my first order of business is mechanical maintenance after all.” He unplugged his keyprong from the terminal, and stood to collect tools. As he knelt down and got to dismantling the thruster collar with a ratchet wrench, he chuckled to himself. “Ahh, if only it were as easy for a human to swap out body parts as it is to service components on a robot. Everyone would benefit from that, I think.”

Fresnel came back through lost in thought, very clearly listening with her full faculties. Where she’d been distraught in October, now she seemed awed and fascinated. He glanced up at her from where he’d sat down in the floor of the circular workbench, cleaning out all the mud and debris from Angel’s pilot light well and exhaust ports.

“Did you ask if I can hear it because you hear it, Fresnel? What’s it telling you?”

“That’s between me and the Granite,” she uttered aside, as though answering him threatened to interrupt the conversation she held with the building.

“Okay, I can’t leave it alone.” He threw his hands in his lap. “You gave the Sacristan a STAR Core. Where did it come from?”

She smiled at him, though her gaze seemed a mile behind him.

“I couldn't risk the chance you'd show up empty-handed. He told me you mentioned the existence of more. I’ve had people scouting for beached crates, and paying them extra if the crates are retrieved unopened. I have not told him that I’ve done this, or that non-Children are working on retrieving them. I got lucky this morning. My scavvers found a crate. I decided I’d give him one of mine, so that we could keep yours.” She began her return to Earth. “We have to find them first, so that no one else can bring attention to them.”

“You found one of our crate--" He clammed up, recognizing that she not only possessed their car now, but their bargaining chips as well. With a sorry tone, he asked her, “...How is your assessment going? I take it you found the breaker back there.”

“The generator is undamaged. Its model takes fusion cores. Several need replacement, but I only brought one with me.”

“It takes… seven, wasn’t it? I certainly thought it was odd the blueprints didn’t call for a full reactor, for how much power it must take for the mall to operate off-grid. But, I’m no engineer. Maybe it makes more sense to you.”

“How did you know that without seeing the interface?”

“I’ve read the AEGIS manual.”

“And you have this… manual with you? Where? It wasn’t in your robot.”

“So you did go in its compartment. I will admit, I thought you took the STAR Core from it when you gave the other one to the Sacristan. But no, I don’t think the manual survived the flooding. We were packing everything up when-- Well, when we got washed away.”

“We will endeavor even harder to reclaim the crates, then. You ask if it makes more sense to me, yes. The generator only uses three at a time, and alternates the load to recharge the rest.”

“You said you only brought one. Are you able to get more?”

“I’m not worried. They’re easy enough to find.”

She restlessly reviewed all the notes she’d taken so far. He got everything cleaned out of Angel that he could, replaced its thruster collar, and eased himself up to sit in the office chair.

“Sorry if I overstepped before. It’s no excuse, but I haven’t had the opportunity to talk to someone else about gender issues before.”

“Oh, no, no.” She shook her head with a taut, pursed grimace, and flipped back to the first page to set it all flat. “It’s not that. If half the FC’s have been dead, that means that, all this time, the Lane’s shields have been at half power, and that the building will function even better once I can replace the generator’s dead FCs. But… that’s only if we can get the building repaired in full. It has me still thinking about the Mayor’s announcement earlier today.”

His head picked up, and he shifted from apology to attention.

“I must have missed that while I was in the shower.”

“The Hall must approve all future alterations to the building. Knott said that the plumbing was the last vital asset required to sustain interior living conditions, and that everything else is ‘purely cosmetic.’ I have not yet spoken with the Sacristan how we should proceed, or whether to proceed. I wished to study this space before I talked to him.”

“I understand why I can't, but why can’t you both just… tell Knott about the AEGIS?”

“The fewer non-Atomites know about the workings of this building, the better. I do agree with Haidinger on this much. It matters not, from whose mouth it comes.”

Hydraulic components in the Robotics Workbench clicked as Angel powered back on. It attempted to reignite its pilot, only to clink back down on the lift. 'Choly and Fresnel both turned to it, at the ready to assist as needed. It tried again. Just as 'Choly stood to approach, his heart stuttered. A third series of clicks and hisses yielded a successful thruster flame. He eased back into the chair with relief, and clipped his Pip-Boy keyprong into the terminal to load the results of his tinkering.

"General Atomics International Mister Handy, 2066 model, nickname 'Angel.' Custom order serialization 33013021102113. Good afternoon, Sir."

"Welcome back. I did better repairing your data than I thought. Your hydraulics could use some additional calibration, but you're afloat. I hate to say it, but I can't clean out your condensators today. We're on a strict time table."

"I appreciate any attention my systems can get, especially when you're able to lend your own. I will say, however…" It set itself back onto the workbench and extinguished its flame. "My current fuel tank is almost exhausted. I should preserve what I have until it's absolutely necessary."

"Good thinking, Angel," he praised with hollow reflex, not looking up from the Pip-Boy screen. "We'll locate a refill and top you off next time. Hopefully this will tide you over until later this week."

"I'm confident in your repairs, Mister Carey--and confident that I can better look after you now."

"We have a lot more work to do," he reminded it. He placed a weak hand on it, and gave it just as weak a smile. "I know I have my diagnostics software to help guide us to what needs repairs and tuning, but don't hesitate to compile a list of anything you'd like us to work on for you as well, my friend. You deserve to have the body and programming that you want to have. The best I can give you."

"I'm General Atomics' finest. I would be hard pressed to believe another in my line was constructed and maintained as well as I."

A hesitant "I'll do my best" was the only objection to form.

He glanced over to see Fresnel still stood by, observing him work. She cleared her throat.

"I study all manner of nuclear technologies from before the Great Division, including robots like your Angel." A vague smile warmed in her cheeks. "It's… nice, to see someone regard equipment with the same tenderness as a loved one. I don't often encounter others with any familiarity with nuclear devices, especially not in the Hinter."

"Because of the Fog. Right."

"Technology is human in origin. If it cannot withstand Atom's breath, then its inversion reminds it what it is, sinks it back to nuclear fuel." She sighed, but her smile remained. "This building is… a rarity. I'm having trouble believing I'm standing in a mainframe room well within the range of the Fog, and the computer still works. Angel seems just as special, somehow."

"You… agree, then, that the AEGIS must be repaired?"

She stared at him with resolve.

"Of course. The only way I would ever approve of the Granite bellowing itself apart is if it could… become manifest."

‘Choly scrunched his nose a bit, to stifle a chuckle.

“But we saw it. We all saw it. Some of us remember it. You remember, don’t you? I got the impression you’re one of the few who didn’t forget that day.”

Fresnel’s shoulders sank in resignation. Her eyes shut as her head tilted side to side.

“Another topic he and I disagree on. I held onto my memory, yes. As a Daughter, I cannot disclose what I saw. Anything intended to be known to anyone else, they will recall on their own in time.”

He bristled. I’m going to regret promising Haidinger a copy of my transcript, aren’t I?

“You do understand,” she pressed, “that we cannot tell Mayor Knott about this… AEGIS, as you called it. Her dominion is the people, not the building in which they live, no matter how much she and her kin believe otherwise. It is for Atom’s Children only, to be intimate with this place.”

“You’re not going to try to kill me, too, are you? Fuck-Me-in-the-Mouth, I’m not going to tell, all right…” He huffed and initiated the hydraulics to lower Angel and disengage. “What even is it about this place you’re all excited over. I understand the Granite is special to your lot, but that’s just the Granite.”

Angel crawled out of the robotics workbench, but kept quiet.

“The structure is one of the only examples of architecture that didn’t only use Granite, but was designed for the Granite. We know it is special, but we do not yet know how exactly those before the Great Division could have known this much about how a nuclear Nor’easter would summon sacred borealis.”

Every attempt to ply her for explanations set him back three steps. He pinched at his eye sockets behind his sunglasses.

“Then he hasn’t shared with you what he knows about the architect or caretaker?”

“I know that he knows more than he tells me. Still, something bothers me.”

His head perked, and he leveled his gaze as he turned to her.

“What is it? Everything we discuss back here, stays between us.”

She hesitated to extrapolate for some time. The words fell out with an uncertain tremor.

“There’s… simply too much copper here. I’ve never… seen so much copper. It concerns me… It has to be why he refuses to permit anyone back here. He knows it would do more than concern many Atomites.”

“The copper is why Lockreed deemed it too costly to manufacture other AEGIS structures. There are other sites that use STAR Cores, but as far as I’ve read in Lockreed documents, this is the only AEGIS structure they made. Copper was the first precious metal affected by war rationing. Steel, aluminum, and tin came next.”

Her hesitance melted into a resigned grief. A sad sliver of a smile stitched across her eyes.

“He allowed me back here because he knows I won’t tell anyone, either. And that I would ensure you understand just how crucial it is that you also tell no one.”

He shook his head, too. He didn’t quite follow, but he knew not to question that she’d confided in him something of extreme delicateness.

“I doubt there’s anyone else here with the engineering experience to understand what copper’s even for. I don’t even really grasp most of what I read in the manual.”

Her smile broadened, and the glint in her eye returned.

“I will manage without the manual. For now, I have plenty of information to study. Are you at a stopping point? We should get back to the Concourse soon.”

He mirrored her smile, and unplugged his Pip-Boy so he could stand. He consciously postured his back, and started toward the corridor.

“I think we’ll manage until we’re allowed another visit to the work station, yes. Fresnel?”

“I’m coming.”

“I just wanted to thank you. I know you don’t think I understand, and I probably don’t. But… thank you. For talking with me, and trying to make me understand. I would understand if you had no patience for me.”

“And I needn’t remind that patience is a virtue,” Angel said. “You’re quite virtuous, I would say.”

She chuckled.

“Then you grasp just how much patience is required to contend with your owner?”

“Yes, well. I’m sure you’d be a bit opaque and difficult, too, if you were cryogenically frozen for two centuries, and woke up to the current state of things.”

“You know I was difficult before all that.” Awkward exasperation cracked his voice.

“You’re… prewar?” They stopped when ‘Choly could no longer hear her steps reverberate. “By Atom, it all makes sense.”

“What, exactly, makes sense?”

“Your demeanor matches many Undying I have met. I thought all this time it’s because they transfix you so, and that you emulated them in your speech.”

“I’m sure you don’t know how much I take that as flattery.”

“I don’t compare many to the Undying.” She flashed him a broad smile.

She tossed a fusion cell from one of her pockets onto the floor and cracked it against the polished concrete under her heel. Then, she picked it up and traced along the panels and conduits on the wall until she found the sweet spot. Her fingers tensed to squeeze the battery casing ever so slightly. The mechanisms in the panel disengaged, and the pocket door slid toward them a few inches before it would permit them to exit.

“Why would a shopping mall have doors that unlock when exposed to radiation?” Angel mumbled. “It always strikes me so singularly.”

Fresnel clenched the broken battery in her fist, savoring the success, and took the lead on their way cutting back through Anchor Inn.

“Something fried the circuitry on several hydraulic doors in the Lane,” she explained without her stride skipping a beat. “The only way for them to complete their connection is to expose them to a small burst of concentrated gamma radiation. To use a prewar term… it takes hotwiring.”

“And here I thought the Sacristan’s secret interrogation room was sealed with occult magic,” ‘Choly joked.

“I suppose he might object to repairing everything in the Lane.”

‘Choly sniffed, and scrunched his nose to push up his sunglasses.

“Only the most important parts.”

“Only the most important parts,” Angel and Fresnel echoed in near-unison.

“When do you suppose he’ll let us in there again? I’d like to use the workbench one more time before we leave.”

“Even if it isn’t tomorrow, there is only so much he can do if Atom wishes to whisper open the door for us.”

“I know I don’t need to say it, but be careful.” His breath stuttered a bit. “The last thing anyone in this place needs is to get on Haidinger’s bad side.”

“You needn’t get on mine, either, Monsieur Melancholy.” She turned to face him, gave him a short jerking bow and a sneer, and clicked her heels. “You might find there are more painful things than being branded by Atom’s Light. But I like you. And I like helping you.”

“Well. You do know what you’re doing. I didn’t say it to give you the impression I distrusted you.”

“I get the feeling we trust each other more than either of us thinks. Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon.” Angel gave a royal wave, though she didn’t see it. “Did that go well? I can’t tell if that went well.”

‘Choly continued on to the GCC. He appreciated that the relocation meant he could avoid stairs.

“I’d like it if you kept my prewar status between us in the future, if you could.”

“You disclose it for shock value all the time, Sir. I figured it was fair game. Did I upset you?”

“No, no. And I don’t think she took it the wrong way. I just have a feeling there are some who will.”

“...Like Mister Jared.”

“Yes, like Mister Jared.”

“M-- Melancholy!” Bledsoe spotted them from his desk in the back corner, and scrambled to rush over to them. He quietened his tone, and shielded onward glances with one hand to the side of his face. “Melancholy, you’ve got to help me.”

“Did something happen while I was out?”

“I took a dose of that Daddy-O you left for me. Now, two of my patients won’t speak to me.” Anxious and gnashing apart the filter of his cigarette, he snatched ‘Choly by both wrists. “You’ve got to fix this. Make me some DayTripper. I’m begging you.”

“Unhand him, Mister Bledsoe.”

‘Choly squirmed. Static prickled in his ears.

“I. I can’t.”

“You have to! This is your fault.” Bledsoe dragged him further into the Clinic, and he could hardly keep up with his gait.

“What! How is it my fault! Have you never taken that stuff before?” ‘Choly remembered to keep his voice down. The moment they were in the back end, Bledsoe turned him loose. ‘Choly shut the door once Angel had joined them. “Have you never taken that stuff before? Why would you take it when you had social obligations!”

“Don’t lecture me, you prick. Not when I think I’ve fucked up this bad. I don’t need this from you on top of getting heat from my patients.” He lit up a fresh cigarette, and began to pace the narrow hall while he finished off the previous one to discard it. “Just tell me what you need in order to make it. I won’t let Sticks be in charge of the price tag, but I’ll let you.”

“I mean to say I literally can’t make DayTripper.”

Liam erupted with a scoff, and vanished into the dining room.

“Yet you can magically make one of the rarest prewar chems out of, let me get this straight--a typewriter ribbon, cigarettes, and coffee.” He heard the snap of a pull tab can. “What, do you need seven rare colors of sewing thread, the piss of an extinct animal, and a photograph of your mother?”

“Low humor, to jeer about one’s mother,” Angel muttered.

Despite how small he felt to be on the receiving end, ‘Choly still stood as straight and firm as he could in the doorway.

“A degree in Quantum Chemistry. I don’t have one.”

“--A what. You made that up just now.”

“I wish I had. It’s too bad I haven’t got any MREs left.”

Bledsoe massaged his nose bridge with his smoking hand, and gesticulated with his Vim.

“I haven’t heard of any Emery chem. Talk some sense, man. Just fix this. You’re some kind of a walking chem encyclopedia. I’ll take any chem you think would help.”

‘Choly squinted through Bledsoe’s meltdown. Eventually, a sliver of a smirk quirked one corner of his mouth before vanishing altogether. He took a seat at the laminated table, and motioned for Bledsoe to join him. Bledsoe preferred to remain standing, so he could pace.

“Now, you meant it when you promised you’d handle ingredient procurement for me.”

“Whatever you need, Sticks and I can probably scrape together just about anything.”

‘Choly folded his hands on the tabletop.

“You’ll let me borrow your phlebotomy equipment. Before we leave.”

“Done. I can already feel you bleeding me dry.”

“And does the area grow Tarberry?”

“Is that all?”

‘Choly gestured for Bledsoe to hand him the Steno and pen from the counter where he’d been working that morning, and he got to writing with a playful murmur.

“Oh, this grocery list comes second nature. Mind you, I told you where the Daddy-O was, but I did not tell you to use any of it. If you can get me the brand name, I might be persuaded to share.”

“You’re supposed to be making me chems!”

“The Mentats and Melancholia are medically necessary. What I make with this list will be… occupationally necessary.”

“Occupationally--"

“--I relied on several chems for my tenure in the US Army. Either you will help me function at the capacity you’re demanding of me, or you and Sticks will have nothing of interest to show for it. You and I, we’re intelligent men. But, we’re no quantum chemists.”

‘Choly met gazes with him. Bledsoe soured first, and took another drink of his Vim.

“What I’m hearing is you promised me you could do something, when you can’t. Can you do this or not? And how the hell did you make the Daddy-O, if it’s so wicked beyond you?”

‘Choly marinated on a way to explain his morning succinctly, relishing the ability to bend the medic’s arm a bit. He drummed at the table a bit in thought.

When he had browsed the MKEXCEED Papers for ideas, he had started with an arbitrary flip to Unit VII: Luck-Adjacent Chems. Only DayTripper had come to mind at the time, as far as chems he knew and that he might find in this unit. Drugstores commonly displayed the chem for sale alongside No-Gesta, with the tandem slogan ‘Get Lucky, with None of the Headache.’[96-2] Its entry in the MKX only listed the standard synthesis via precursor, and synthesis via a shorthand formula.

Now, the MKX seemed to posit two avenues to increase postwar accessibility to the chemistry for its encyclopedic pharmacology. Since Deenwood had allegedly compiled and revised this data for nearly two centuries, they had hit similar obstructions in their studies as he had with the Merrick Pharmacopeia. The primary proposed method substituted the scarce compounds. Through reverse analysis, the authors had deduced everyday sources for otherwise inaccessible compounds. He had not yet determined the means to decipher the instructions provided in the other method.

If it weren’t some manner of pharmacological shorthand, it had to be a cipher. It more resembled the unruly marriage of advanced mathematics and sentence diagrams than it did any chemistry he knew, and it nearly read as alchemical. Why did the formula lines curl and intersect in places? He regretted never learning calculus, but also supposed it wouldn’t have helped him with this regardless.

Still, it had given him such a headache just trying to scan it for any command of methodology that he’d justified taking Mentats that morning. The lights hadn’t been bothering him with the sunglasses, but these formulas? He dreaded what it would take to inevitably cook up √X-Cell for Sticks when the need arose.

But here, Bledsoe’s predicament provided him the perfect opportunity to study quantum chemistry and understand what it stood to represent. Just having access to the MKX method of shortcut constituents like he’d pulled with the Daddy-O had been huge, sure, but Sticks wasn’t the only one of them compelled to procure these bizarre recently declassified substances. He and Sticks had a deal, and he intended to make good on it to the best of his abilities… and hell, if it wouldn’t provide him a satisfyingly maddening challenge to boot.

“My laundry list there is no substitute for any PhD, but using the chems it'll craft for study is the next closest thing.” He smiled a little too wide. “You’ll find I’m capable of anything, given the right chem.”

Bledsoe draped himself down on the table, eyes desperate with interest.

“And me? Chopped liver?”

“You're asking if you could make a chemist out of you? We'll see. I have the feeling we both stand to learn a great deal from one another. Don't worry. You'll come back from our vacation in fantastic shape.”

"When we get back?" Any begging that lingered in Bledsoe's voice deflated. "We don't leave for days… Ohh, I can't wait to leave!"

"Maybe next time, you'll listen to me when I say look, don't touch."

Go to Next »»»

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[96-1] Sheldon shampoo. Analogous to Breck shampoo, one of the oldest commercial shampoo products. Originally formulated in Springfield, Massachusetts. It saw its height of popularity between the 30s and 60s. Models called the Breck Girls posed for the brand's iconic ads, known for their soft, stylized portraitures. Their first artist was C.G. Sheldon.

[96-2] No-Gesta and DayTripper. Referencing this Walden Drugs of Concord pic I did back in 2020.

[purkinje-effect]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 97: Nothing Beside Remains

Table of Contents Third Instar, Chapter 28. Go to previous. Go to next. CWs for religion, unreality, and delusions.

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“...Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away.” -- Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias”

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“Why are we headed to Sutter Grove, then, Sir?”

Angel followed along behind ‘Choly as the pair walked the Upper Level, from the GCC to the southern end of the Concourse. Unlike the near-abandoned Lower Level, the second story of the Concourse housed many residents. Leases didn’t seem to have opened up shop, like an animal in hiding until the coast was clear… or possibly even an animal lying in wait. He bit at his lip for a ways. Eventually, he replied.

“I can’t leave it alone. Consider it bribery if you have to, but I must get more information out of Haidinger, even if it costs me.”

The Mister Handy wanted to hesitate, but resisted what would put any distance between them.

“But we haven’t anything in the way of funds at present.”

“We still have several brokering chips, by my count.” ‘Choly stopped only long enough to wag a mindful finger at it. “Many things are worthless unless the man in possession of them knows exactly what he has.”

“I do hope you know what you’re doing, Sir.”

“I probably don’t, but let’s have some faith.”

As they stepped into the entryway for Sutter Grove, they passed the miniature replica of Pheasant Lane Mall on display. ‘Choly straightened in his orthotics. His eyes trailed the odd glowing recessed filigrees of Burlington glass which illuminated the hallways. He quashed his nervous, wandering attention, and pulled his eyes from the architecture.

He didn’t need to locate an Atomite to ask after the Sacristan. Haidinger sat with the door open in an office not too far from the entryway. The glowing, ghoulish priest noticed Angel’s metallic scrabbling and rushed to his feet to greet them.

“Ah! You there.” Haidinger’s shoulders locked square. His gloved hands refrained from reaching out, if even simply to gesture in admonition that the robot risked scuffing the floors by crawling out in this manner. “Atom keep you, cousin. How is your robot?”

‘Choly looked to Angel, then back to the Sacristan.

“It’s still going to take time, but Angel is improving. Thank you.”

Haidinger tried to smile.

“And your hand? How is it?”

“That… will take more time than Angel will, but I’m not snagged up, if that’s what you’re asking.” He held up his still-blistered left forearm for emphasis. “I don’t understand why this was your reaction to the situation, but I want to.”

‘Choly produced a holotape from his pocket and took Haidinger’s hands to place it in them. He clasped his hands around Haidinger’s with an apologetic tenderness.

He also tried to smile.

“We got off on the wrong foot, Sacristan.”

His wandering fingers traced Haidinger’s exposed wrists. Haidinger withdrew his hands, gripping the holotape in one hand while gripping that hand with the other, and with a somber but pleased sigh he upturned his hand to read the tape.

“When you said you had a transcript for your experience during the Division Day storm, I believed it to be a physical text. No matter.”

“It’s a duplicate. I brought it to give to you. Transcribed most of it by holotape. If the holotape proves interesting to you, I could be persuaded to share my physical notes as well. You have a way to read this?”

“I have a way, yes. Thank you.” Haidinger squinted at the holotape at length, almost as though he didn’t understand the gesture. “Something bothers you. Do you wish to discuss it?”

“What, the holotape?” A misleading, distracted chuckle slipped out of him. “I don’t know what about it that I would need to discuss. …No, what bothers me might somehow tie back to that tape, but the tape itself isn’t it.”

Haidinger placed a sympathetic hand on ‘Choly’s shoulder.

“We have quiet, open spaces nearby that will afford a bit of privacy. Come, speak with me in my office.”

“It’s true. I have a motive. I…”

Haidinger led them back to where they’d found him. The tart musk of incense crinkled up in ‘Choly’s nose. Contrasting the dark, holographic corridors of the church, countless specimens of Burlington glass adorned every open surface of this space, drawn into all manner of arcane shapes he found at once oddly familiar and unusual. Concentric rings traced seemingly impossible fluorescent sigils. Shocks of fabric and lengths of fiber intermixed with the glowing artisan glass and incorporated dozens of bones of uncertain origin. ‘Choly squirmed inside that some of the larger ones, used to intimate a more organic concentrism, may once have belonged to a whale. He didn’t give his legs the chance to grow unsteady with grief, and sat in one of the available wooden chairs opposite Haidinger’s low, round desk. Angel parked itself directly next to him and curled up its tendrils to occupy as little space as possible. He set one needful hand upon it, and lowered his voice.

“...We're going to give living at Ant Lane another try. Sticks won't tell me why he’s been reluctant, but I know the one thing that eats at me more than anything. Tell me that any unease I feel around that pit is unfounded. I don’t know why it made sense in my head to seek you of all people about it. I’m no Atomite. I’ve never been much for religious sentiment. It’s just a hole.”

Haidinger sat beside him rather than opposite him.

“You came here seeking reason. May Atom provide. You were right to come to me. You mean the sinkhole caused by the tunneling damage, n’est-ce pas? You needn’t worry. The Hall may have blocked funding for further repairs, but the Mayor has provided the Church with increased funds in recent months. Sutter Grove intends to pay for any repairs our Glassworks cannot ourselves provide.”

‘Choly wanted to sit on his hands to keep from wringing them, but handwringing felt like the only appropriate thing to do at the time. He hemmed.

“My unease goes deeper than that. You misunderstand me. The red and green hallucinations. The things people thought they saw right before the storm didn’t necessarily mean anything, but I can’t stop thinking about what I saw.” His gaze raced over every feature of glass and bone it could find, sooner than make direct eye contact. “I hope we’re not interrupting anything.”

‘Choly only trembled more by trying not to, and Haidinger noticed. His brow pitied the chemist.

“Many have described their Burlington visions to me,” he said, grave but kind. “It sounds as though you believe your visions may have caused you unease. Are you comfortable describing to me what you saw? I have the time for you now.”

As ‘Choly spoke, Haidinger turned the holotape over in his hands. He nodded along softly, calculating what response might best help him.

“I’ve done my best to forget about it, but neither the storm nor flood helped with that. I feel this… horrendous dread deep in my gut over it. I saw some distressing green things, but… I had this red one, too, standing right over the sinkhole, a few hours before it caved in.” He struggled to join his words with his meaning. “Blood red. There was a… spinning. Rot. So much rot. The Clark girl, the younger one. For some reason, I noted on that tape that she personified something about that hole as hunger. Seeing how the ants dragged all those bodies into it… It sounds absurd now, to speak it, but I can’t shake feeling like the ants were trying to feed us to it.” A brief, desperate display of enamel softened the conviction in his voice and squinted his eyes into slivers. “Of course, I know none of this happened. Only a series of images created by my brain in a magnetic field.”

“Witnessing things out of sequence can distress even the most resolute. Some Burlington shifts embody emotions and energies rather than giving us concrete, literal projections in time. It’s more common with ‘red’ ones, as you put it. That said, the spinning did potentially harken to something literal. Years ago, this place once had what’s called a carousel. A riding amusement from the time before. It was one of the last remaining things the Concourse continued to use as a visitor attraction, even after it swore off all other technology.”

‘Choly leaned toward him. Rigor locked his eyes wide open as he gripped the geometrically carved armrest. He rejected any implication he could in any capacity see the future--not after everything Jared had put him through.

“...Carousel. I know what those are. They have… animals to sit on. Sleighs and carriages sometimes. Lights, and music. And they rotate, but slowly. My vision spun dizzyingly fast. What… what happened to it?”

Haidinger patted the back of his hand with a murmur.

“The winter of 2258 happened. It was the first time in Ant Lane’s history that the barriers lapsed. We had multiple nor’easters that year, after thirteen years without any. At the same time the storms’ resonance did not manage to activate the Granite, some property of the storms seemed to compel the Lane’s denizens to… experience things, behave a particular way. With each storm that season, people further dismantled the carousel. You can still find pieces of it scattered around the property, if you know where to look.”

“How odd. I saw people digging there. In my hallucination. How deep did they actually dig? The tiles in that area were different from the rest of the mall.”[97-1]

Haidinger couldn’t rein in a look like ‘Choly must have grown a second head.

“I’m telling you that your vision was metaphorical. Isn’t that reassuring?”

‘Choly’s mouth hung open as he formed the resolve to insist upon it.

“How deep.”

The sacristan shifted in his chair, and broke eye contact.

“They were trying to breach the barrier. They did not succeed.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” He caught himself raising his voice and his fingers went to his mouth in apology. “Why would they upend an entire amusement ride just so they could dig under it? They could have just broken open the gates, if they only wanted the Granite to activate. And the ground is the least effective side they could’ve picked to expose the Concourse to the storm, too.”

“Many things in Atom’s domain are beyond us to comprehend. You’re correct. At the time, I too presumed the Granite begged for its voice. I’ve dedicated decades of study to this place, not just as its sacristan, but as someone troubled deeply by the things I witnessed the Concourse denizens do that winter. I have not seen even the Fog-Lost be so compelled as they were. The Concourse attempted a lockdown, but many found disturbing means to circumvent it that I still cannot explain. Before Division Day, I worried the Lane would fall into the same obsession. The two winters thankfully had next to nothing in common.”

This was the first ‘Choly was hearing of Haidinger dreading any aspect of the storm.

“Almost nothing isn’t nothing.”

“How to put it. You’re aware we monitor the ants, as a means to predict the weather, yes?”

‘Choly carded the fingers of one hand in the air to jog his memory, and raised a finger.

“Yancy. The Lane’s meteorologist. We’ve met.”

Haidinger nodded briskly. He hadn’t expected a full response.

“Right. It’s the ants, you see. Usually we know of imminent storms whenever the ants go dormant. Both in 2287 and 2258, they were active during the nor’easters. Now, they invaded the Concourse and enacted devastating carnage. Then, they were directly responsible for the barrier’s failure.”

“Maybe the intensity of the storm drove the ants to seek shelter, but it frenzied them. If there’s been multiple times the ants have posed this level of risk, why won’t the Lane just exterminate them?”

“I have heard this sentiment come up a great deal since Division Day. I am reluctant to agree with it. Even if it were so simple as to kill a few insects, they are denizens of this structure as well, and they even cultivate a crucial food source for those who cohabit it. Yancy Mercer is adamant that the Satellites would suffer without the forewarning to take shelter. Atom’s Children thrive and endure just fine all throughout this land no matter the weather, but this is the only settlement between here and the Galleria with any protection from the storms for anyone else. I will tell you in earnest: though I want nothing more than for the Granite’s procession to become manifest, I also know it’s not destined to come to be by the relentless chewing of myriad ants.” The weight of the conversation finally shook a haunted look from the sacristan. “No, that hole cannot remain.”

“It should reassure me more than it does that the Atomites’ leadership is in agreement to keep the Granite ‘Quiet.’ You do agree that we must repair the AEGIS, right, not just the building itself?”

“At any cost,” Haidinger replied, a little too quickly. His eyes narrowed in thought before opening again. “In agreement? You’ve spoken with Fresnel about this, too, then. I take it she could not ease your mind much, either.”

About other things, maybe.

“No, we didn’t share many words. We were both focused on our respective tasks.”

“She’s been busy indeed. You know, I confided in her about your crates. I hear she’s done her best to locate them. I’ve beseeched a handful for the recovery effort as well. Thanks to the mayor’s donations, I’ve been able to afford to pay our cousins and siblings for their labor in this. So far, we’ve found only one crate, but the effort is ongoing.”

“You’ve found a crate--?” He barely withheld a too.

“It’s nothing of use. Several dozen of some kind of board game.” Haidinger knit his hands in his lap and trained his gaze on them. “That many more of a holotape of the same name. I loaded one, and it seems to be some kind of… Oh, how is it called. Video game.”

A smile broadened the corners of ‘Choly’s mouth at the absurdity.

“Jangles’ Big Day. Lockreed’s storage was full of them.” His smile plastered a bit as he turned to glance at the Diorama in the hallway still within view. Somehow, it only served to unnerve him further to have the door open. He couldn’t shake the unease that someone, or something, could be following him. “Of course that was the first crate to resurface. Hopefully, the next dozen won’t be more of the same.”

“Atom abound! Still your tongue.” Haidinger steadied his breathing, and settled back into his chair. “Forgive me, though. The subject has wandered. You came to me to ease your worries. Have you discussed everything with me that you wished to?”

As he turned again to face the sacristan, the plaster smile deliquesced into one of misshapen, dopey clay.

“I kind of regret bringing it up, and welcome a chance to change the subject. Say, the Diorama is where you archive the film and holotapes you come across, right?”

“Once I transcribe your holotape, the tape itself will be stored there, yes.”

“I would love to borrow from that library sometime.”

Haidinger whipped ramrod and wide-eyed.

“The Vault is not a lending library. It is an archive.”

‘Choly shrank, if even mostly mentally. He raised a reluctant finger.

“But… what if it were? Humor me. Did you happen to keep the JBD holotapes?”

Haidinger’s brow furrowed.

“I wasn’t sure what to do with them. The crate is still in the maintenance room where I left it. You wish to borrow… a board game?”

“Not as such. They’re not completely useless. I understand being protective of things you might have only one copy of, if that's the trouble. I can use those JBDs to create duplicates of any analog item in your archive. Then, maybe you would be more inclined to allow a little lending? Backup copies.”

Haidinger’s indignant confusion softened into a certain deference. He rose to encourage ‘Choly to follow him to the Diorama. ‘Choly pushed off from the desk to follow the sacristan. Angel unfurled itself to crawl along nearby.

“You come to Sutter Grove for help, only to offer your own. You would do that? For the Church? And how? These Jangle holotapes, they already contain something.” He lifted the lid for ‘Choly. “What do you believe you stand to gain from this lending? What do you hope to find in here?”

The chemist sighed. He didn’t want to push his luck asking for several, but narrowing his selection to a single holotape daunted him nonetheless. Though the film reels interested him most, owing to his offer, he kept to his holotapes. His eyes repeatedly wandered to the model of the large carousel in the back of the Concourse replica.

“Mm, I offer moreso for you. It is selfishness on my part, though. I used to drown out my anxieties with fiction. All the books, television, movies, and radio I could cram into my day. I'm looking for entertainment, distractions. Have you always enjoyed film, or did you only come to appreciate it after the war made it scarce?”

“I take my curation duties very seriously, but I admit it’s as much a passion as a calling. These stories must have been lovely to experience firsthand in the last world, but they have taken on an entirely new value, through surviving into this one.” Giddiness tugged at the corners of his mouth, but he remained collected. “You love films, and you’re familiar with things such as carousels. Society by large, as it existed before the last known Division… it fascinates you, then, does it not? If it’s so, then we share a passion for history.”

‘Choly brightened a shade when he came across a section of radio dramas, and plucked one out at random.

“Ah! You have copies of Lights Out. Lovely.”[97-2] He eyed the episode’s label–’Murder in the Script Department’--sooner than let himself continue to glare off into the Diorama. “Oh, it’s not so much that I’m fascinated by it, as it is that I experienced it firsthand. You’re probably older than I am, especially accounting for the time I spent unconscious, and you certainly got good looks for it where I became laden with health complications, but… To put it simply, I might not be a ghoul, but because of what Vault-Tec did to me, I’m as old as one.”

Haidinger remained still and silent for some time. ‘Choly gnarled up all over again, having just chastised Angel for disclosing his age freely, only to do so himself, and with indiscernible purpose in having done so at that. He anticipated Angel would have cross words for him later, and he’d have nothing to say for himself. As the glowing ghoul pursed together what remained of his thin, sinewy lips, the chemist hung on his every reticent word.

“In strictest confidence, not all of those as I am are as old as the Division.”

“Verity. I know he only got that way somewhat recently. I understand he’s an unusual case.”

Haidinger could only look again to his upturned hands, at a loss.

“Well, I am myself an unusual case. I don’t remember much from before I stayed my valence at the Lane. For all I know, I could have become a conduit of Atom’s Light the day before I stepped foot here in 2205. I’ve always supposed this gift came at the cost of knowing who I was before it was bestowed upon me.”

‘Choly could only stare. His gaze tried to swerve across Haidinger’s body, but a quiet, raging jealousy locked his attention on his face.

“So for all you know,” he quavered, “you might be just like Verity.”

As Haidinger spoke, regret eroded his composure, and any softness in his tone crumbled to an exigent hush.

“It’s common belief that Atom created all of the Undying Glow during the last Division, and none since. I’ve never corrected anyone on this presumption, since I do not know for certain. I don’t know how my congregation would take the possibility that my existence might prove that Atom continues to create more like me. And oh, would I need Her Grace, were I found wrong in my speculation.”

‘Choly loosed a nervous chuckle.

“Surely, they wouldn’t take it any more poorly than learning just how much copper is in this place.”

Haidinger’s bright eyes slashed with grief, and he clutched at his chest.

“May your tongue consume away in your mouth![97-3] You wouldn’t say such irreverent, callous things so freely if only you understood.” With stony revulsion, he reached into the Diorama for himself, to produce a holotape of his own. He caught himself trying to drag ‘Choly along by the wrist, but still pushed him along by the shoulders back into the office. “I won’t stand for this a moment longer. It’s my duty to demonstrate as best I can how you handle a subject so delicate as filigree glass with the callous abandon as though it were mud.”

‘Choly returned to the chair. He and Angel sustained bated eye contact as Haidinger shut the door and sat on the edge of the desk in front of him.

“You’re not in trouble. And the door isn’t locked, I promise.” Haidinger shoved the holotape at him, sneering with pity. “Your Pip-Boy. Use it to play this.”

“I’m sure I could find time later this evening--"

“--You’ll listen to it now. This one does not leave my possession.” The priest laced his gloved hands in his lap. “My reverence for archiving and constructing Ant Lane’s Chrestomathy[97-4] is second only to my upkeep of the building itself. Understand that what you now have in your hands is neither fiction nor entertainment.”

“Should I be more frightened of the nightmare I described to you, or this holotape?” ‘Choly’s attempt at nervous laughter choked to a halt when he regarded the tape in his hands. A deteriorated printed label still legibly read Taskerlands, B. 08/10/2077. He sucked on his teeth. His lips parted but imparted nothing. Shutting his mouth, he huffed with a thin smile. “You’re trying to scare me. It’s working.”

“You have more context than many. It should prove most educational for you.”

He snapped the recording into the tape deck of his Pip-Boy and clicked it shut, then tuned the audio output to the tape.

People chatted in the distance. A register till’s bell dinged. At places, faint music faded through.

‘Hit an impasse.’ The brusque male Canadian voice sounded so lost. ‘Need to talk it out, make sense of it. The blueprint calls for twenty-nine. Been coming up all but empty-handed. Doubtful that replicas would work. And these need to work.’

‘Choly shifted in his seat.

The man in the recording slid from contemplative distress into a scattered call-to-action.

‘Couldn’t convince Dunwich to part with any. Their contacts were actively unhelpful. Maybe... maybe Bysshe. No margin for error. Got to keep moving on fresh leads. Not that there’ve been any. Last expert went missing. What was the name... Need to be able to verify the authenticity of any deathmask that pops up. Why won’t Norliss[97-5] help anymore?’

A gruff growl came, then a crash. Nearby people began to whisper.

‘Don’t know what to do...! Can’t leave the blueprint incomplete. Running out of time. Have to keep it contained here, at any cost.’ The viscosity of his diction intensified as he pressed the device closer. ‘If you find this holotape, you must ensure the design is in tact and to the letter. It’s the only way.’

‘Mister, Mister Taskerlands,’ stuttered a proper young woman, mustering as much deference as she could. ‘I see you’ve... spent the night here. Again.’ An unnerved laugh escaped her. Under her breath, she murmured something about DeMarco-Boyle’s. ‘That’s the ninth time this month, that I’m aware of. Need I remind you that we don’t permit staff or patrons to sleep on the furniture here. Is there anything we can do for you, Sir?’ Deliberate choice in words could not belie her frustration or disbelief. ‘With how you carry on to yourself into that recorder there, well, Sir... It scares the customers. You’re starting to cost Sutter Grove sales. And costing Sutter Grove costs Pheasant Lane, wouldn’t you say, Sir? You don’t want anyone to think ill of your mall, do you?’

A long pause.

‘It’s cost everything.’

‘Oh, good. You can still communicate. Presumably.’ Despite the possible shift in his behavior, his habits still elicited her jaded ire by this point. ‘He’s not going to budge. The annexation has been taking a serious toll on him, you know.[97-6] Harry, get the security detail for an escort.’

‘But it still won’t be enough, will it?’

The recording ended with a mechanical click. ‘Choly stared at the device on his right arm, bewildered. A chuckle cracked out of him tandem to a bewildered, lyrical affect, but he could neither smile nor laugh.

“What exactly is it that you want me to learn from this? That Taskerlands was even more unstable than I thought? What was he even going on about?”

The moment he had ejected the tape, Haidinger yanked it from him.

“The Great Marbled Taskerlands endured tremendous duress to accomplish all he did in the before last world. What more is there to explain to you than what’s come straight from his mouth? This recording is the closest I’ve ever come to understanding the truth of this place. You heard him: we must preserve this space and design.”

A gaunt wetness lingered in Haidinger’s luminescent chartreuse eyes. ‘Choly scanned for meaning in the ghoul’s features, but found nothing unspoken.

“Or else what?”

“I… I don’t know.” Haidinger’s exasperation crumpled into anxious self-consciousness. He turned away from them, to face the neon sigils on his far wall, and his voice once more became a thin whisper. “One might imagine that what transpired on Division Day this year is all the proof we need that he was right to appoint the Aldermen.”

“Alder-- But none of this is real!” ‘Choly tossed his hands out at him, incredulous and in great deficit of patience. “Don’t you see!? Nothing is real! That’s my whole damn problem, isn’t it!”

The sacristan’s eyes shot wide with shock, and he staggered when he whipped around on his feet to face them again.

“Where did you get such ideas,” he uttered. “Say you didn’t find such lies here. There can be no apostate in this house.”[97-7]

“If I’m alone in having Division Day shatter my sense of reality, I would shoot myself in the foot. This whole thing has been fruitless and meaningless. The red shift, that recording… it all means nothing.”

“And I cannot reassure you otherwise? Or sway you from such... abandon?”

“You’re a priest, not a psychiatrist, and it was my mistake to believe otherwise. I don’t know what I thought you could tell me that could possibly quieten my swirling whalefall nightmare.”

Haidinger sniffed, a shallow, damp click.

“I think... that for the moment, unless there is anything else you must discuss with me, you should leave, Melancholy.” Eventually, Haidinger nodded, mostly to himself. “You should seriously consider joining us for services. Sutter Grove can give you the footing and clarity you desperately need.”

‘Choly patted at the drama holotape in his pants pocket, and tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

“I told you I don’t mind making copies for you of anything I take out. I’ll bring back the original and a duplicate before the week’s out.”

Austerity defeated Haidinger’s agitation, and he simply drooped.

“Promise me that, cousin. And promise me our chat remains between us. All of it.”

‘Choly’s internal deflation amounted only to the slight slouch of his shoulders.

“You have my word.”

Haidinger went to his door to reopen it for them. They followed.

“Do not mistake my severity for the absence of compassion. You are deeply troubled, but I do not deny you. Just because I see you out of my office now, does not mean I turn you away for good. As you are, you are unable to truly heed Atom’s truths. If in the future you decide I am trustworthy and authentic enough for your regard, my door is always open to you. It is up to you to put this... Nothingness out of your mind. Only then can you accept Atom’s warmth and light, and only then can your vessel heal and grow from within.”

‘Choly nodded with solemnity, for lack of any better reply.

“Thank you for humoring me in all this, Sacristan. For what it’s worth, it means something that you tried to be of comfort. If you’re not here when I bring the holotapes, I’ll deposit them in the Diorama for you myself. If that’s all right.”

“I’d rather you brought them to me, but I also understand if you don’t wish to invite discussion. Just… don’t take anything from it without first telling me personally that you have it. You may have the rare advantage of technology that can access the contents of the Chrestomathy’s hard copies, but remember well: it is stealing to take without permission.”

“I understand.”

The sacristan’s furrowed in a gracious pity.

“Atom keep you then. Atom find… and keep you. You know where to find me.”

“Thank you for your time, Sacristan,” Angel said.

‘Choly nodded in gratitude. They walked out, but he kept glancing back. Before they even crossed paths with the Diorama again, he saw Haidinger prostrate himself in the far corner of his office, uttering some feverish Keb contrition.

They started back toward Anchor Inn. Once he and Angel got to the Concourse, he stopped and opened up Angel’s storage compartment. He glanced around to ensure no one was nearby to notice, then he deposited the holotape for safekeeping. He hesitated, and pocketed the radio drama instead. He pressed shut the compartment once more.

“Mister Carey,” Angel started, as they resumed walking. ‘Choly flinched, but said nothing, expecting rebuke. “I knew there were some understandable stressors at play as of recent, but I had no idea you were struggling enough to consider seeking religious counsel. You know you can always talk to me, Sir.”

He eventually unclenched.

“This is no spiritual crisis, I assure you. In lieu of an available psychiatrist, I had to settle for a priest. That’s all. Besides, I doubt very much that there’s anything you could tell me that would assuage my nerves regarding that damn sinkhole pit. --I have no clue what I said to set him off like he did.” He wiped the sorry off his face. “...You’re okay with us staying, right?”

“I stayed quiet while you chatted with the Sacristan, but I was there for moral support. I’m worried that you’ve been under such stress, Sir. I must tell you. I used to worry about staying in this Hinter area long-term, but things seem much better now. Ant Lane’s denizens will successfully repair the mall. It will be a safe haven again well before the next storm season. Besides,”  it said with an unconvincing lyric to its audio, “as Haidinger said, they don’t get storms like that here every year.”

“...I think I need this vacation more than Bledsoe.” Weary, he snapped his fingers. “Right now, though, I need some air after the morning we’ve had. Let’s go see how Blue holds up.”

“Understandable! Hopefully, we won’t distract them too much.”

Go to Next »»»

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[97-1] Tile usage in Pheasant Lane Mall. When the real Pheasant Lane Mall was remodeled into its contemporary design, they kept a certain amount of the original concourse facade in homage, including sections of floor tiling.

[97-2] Arch Oboler’s Lights Out, “Murder in the Script Department.”

[97-2] Quoted scripture from the Crater House terminal entries, cut from the final version of Fallout 4.

[97-4] Chrestomathy. A compilation of texts, which in sum serves a didactic purpose. Most frequently, the texts provide a lens by which to learn a language, but the educational value can be for any subject. Here, the archive Haidinger curates is a series of media which provides documentation and reference for the culture, history, and living language of Ant Lane.

[97-5] The Norliss Tapes. One of the earliest examples of found footage horror, wherein the tale is told through a series of cassette tape recordings of an investigator who went missing during a case with occult involvement. It’s a namesake as ever, not a crossover, though, promise.

[97-6] Canadian Annexation. The US declared ownership of Canada for its oil rights and geographic advantages in 2072, and by 2077, it succeeded in fully annexing its territories. The invasion and occupation came at great cost and duress to Canadian citizens.

[97-7] Nothing. [redacted]

Included as unmarked footnote, wrt the mention of replicas: A major tenet of the “Metro men conspiracy” lay in the fact so many of these bronze deco-esque sculptures keep cropping up deep within the earth across the franchise, sometimes embedded in solid granite. It’s been theorized that, since there are asset variants for both “Metroman” and “Metrowoman” with exposed rebar, but none of the aberrant subterranean sculptures have been of the damaged/incomplete variant, those used as architectural fixtures are in fact replicas… and that the buried heads predate any human civilization, or may even be extraterrestrial in origin. It bears mentioning that multiple buried bronze sculptures appear in mines, most notably the Dunwich Borers near Salem, MA, as though the companies involved sought to excavate the sculpture, making their mining operations secondary.

[purkinje-effect]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 83: Möbius

Table of Contents. Third Instar, Chapter 14. Go to previous.  Go to next. CWs: Drug synthesis, some gender stuff, blood, the topic of blood ingestion, unreality, a dead body, religion, physical police conflict. [Tagline in footnotes, under [0].] (Edited ‘22.03.04. I forgot to footnote the diorama with a metatextuality that predicates incumbent context.)

______________________________

‘Choly sucked on a sublingual Mentat. He sat working at the small desk in the lease’s back storage hall, which he’d allocated to chem synthesis. Wedged in the far end of the narrow hallway with the utility hall door to his left, he squirmed sometimes in his kitchen chair for lack of mental space. No curtain blocked the peripheral motion of passersby cutting through to the community baths through the utility door’s wired glass window. They took a few days to get over to inform Liam and Orqueida of their successful acquisition. He still nursed the celebratory hangover this morning, enduring the unique suffering of drinking water instead of coffee.

He chewed up the Mentat. To several dozen cigarette butts he’d got simmering in water on the hot plate, he added a measured amount of laundry powder. The night before, he’d sneaked a fistful from the ashtray Liam kept in his desk. As he macerated the mixture with a stir rod, he appreciated the broad overlap in a majority of chemistry endeavors. He doubted anyone would have the pharmacological insight to know this wasn’t the process for which he’d requested the soap. Most of the soap would become Mentats. This quarter-cup, however, would give him some meager solace. He could convince Angel he was stocking up for outdoor excursions, lampshading the ridiculousness of ammunition without a gun. But Sticks likely knew from his experiences trafficking chems that someone could use the darts independent of having a gun at all[1]: for example, the chem Calmex.

These weren’t Calmex. They weren’t even Pax. And he had no aspirations for self-administering these.

With no timeframe how long Sticks’s procurement errands would have him out of the lease, ‘Choly kept to small batches… and components only of things which he’d explicitly agreed to concoct. He’d continue stockpiling darts any time he had the chance. He doubted Sticks would question this fresh batch of darts for the revolver ‘Choly had let him believe had remained locked up in the car, and he certainly didn’t risk Sticks reporting him, either. His inability to predict Sticks nettled him, and he hated that it nettled him.

His cane’s vanishing baffled and infuriated him in its absurdity. In the hands of someone less enfeebled, See’s would have made no exception that a walking cane constituted a bludgeoning weapon, and thus fair game for confiscation. He wondered whether the checkpoint rental would have any cane they’d allow him, but he hated the reality of the weapons checkpoint even more than the vulnerability of being forced to go without a cane for a week now. The Hall allowed See’s to make pinch decisions, on a case by case basis, whether someone met the minimum requirement of disability or age to be permitted both accommodations and Concourse entry, and anyone less lucky had to beg See’s to let them buy back whatever articles forfeit. It would have chewed him up, if he let himself speculate whether See’s would consider him too fit to permit him a cane indoors, now that he had the Surgical Leathers.

Mentats or no, the current soap project still had him hoping he could put his hands on more barberry syrup soon. He’d only had use for regular Mentats lately, for his migraines (and hangovers), but he disliked that his Berry reserves had dwindled down to a single tin.

Again, he didn’t ask Angel for the MKExceed Papers. He couldn’t test the lethality of anything he concocted from its encyclopedia of formulas, and right now, he only needed the means to defuse potential conflict. Unlike a bullet, an «empty»[2] dart provided a broad gamut of solutions beyond injury or death. Too, he expected the MKX’s formulas to require materials for which he had no current working access. He had to get over himself soon, and make himself read the damn thing. The General’s cornucopian access to a chem like DayTripper evinced for him the likelihood the MKX Papers documented her reverse engineering of dozens of invaluable patent precursors otherwise lost to the end of the world. And he’d promised Sticks he would replace Olivia’s pharmacological labor with his own, now that they had each severed any neutrality with her.

‘Choly recalled Verity Royce having called the GCD’s merchandise ‘some fine candy,’ and couldn’t decide whether chill or delight elicited the resultant shiver.

He didn’t wait for the darts to cool before tucking them into a case. He walked into the living area and called for Angel, and stripped out of the Surgical Leathers and his robe.

Halloween was around the corner, and he certainly wanted people to come bearing pumpkin pails and pillowcases… and pulls, of course. In the three days they’d had the GCD open, they’d only had two customers, and both, Liam had sent for Mentats. ‘Choly blamed their dearth of traffic on not having a neon sign. Cast in the same science as the armillary glass, such signs advertised more than tenancy. In addition to the expenditure of a custom commission from Burlington’s glass artisans, it took a minimum of one season for such a piece to arrive from the Champlain basin. Due to the investment of time, money, and residency, displaying a neon sign demonstrated to the average Ant Lane patron a lease establishment’s reputability. Their hand-lettered Grand Opening sign might as well have been painted on the side of a panel van, and they had no real word of mouth to do them any favors. With its tenants taking up residency in cars and trucks, vehicular signage may have fared better in the parking garage, he guessed.

When Angel entered, he tossed the articles on the bed and beckoned it to him.

“I’m going out.”

He stored his Merrick Index in Angel’s compartment, and tucked the case of Mind Cloud darts in its false bottom at the same time.

Then, he got to dressing more fully. He hadn’t expected to struggle to determine what would fit over his Surgical Leathers. Dress shirts didn’t button up all the way, with the cervical collar. Shirts and sweaters with sleeves strained to clear the slim pauldrons that attached the Leathers’ arms and stabilized his shoulders. The chemisette had fit snug over the canvas orthotic corset, but it almost didn’t tie shut at the sides over the leather one. His golf pants didn’t even wholly cooperate with the combination of belt strap and joints which aligned his hips and knees. Either he’d require different sizing and tailoring, or he’d have to embrace the local culture a little more fully–and the former cost money, so he made himself try the latter.

Having had to remove the right forearm to accommodate his Pip-Boy, to him, indicated for some reason that he wasn’t just an anachronism here: he outright didn’t belong. He snipped at himself for getting on it again, and pulled on his Vault Suit.

It wasn’t that he disliked the idea of wearing it as an undergarment for his Leathers. It was that he still couldn’t adjust to the notion of having his foundations on display on purpose. The sight of an exposed waistband or bra strap on others still gave him a start. These orthotics embodied the interstices of his gender and his disability; wrestling himself to terms with one necessitated aligning himself to the other. To wear their symbol as his most visible layer, he had to convince himself that these weren’t layers at all, but a single continuous surface of his being.

“...But Sir, we’re open for business.”

He could easily refasten the Surgical Leathers himself because the straps of the fan lacing held their measurements and didn’t take an extra pair of hands every time to manipulate with precision. He toed into his boots and tied them before latching his shins, so he could clear them with the stirrups which rested in the notch between the heel and sole.

What about the Leathers has a thing to do with my gender, anyway? He rolled his eyes at himself. What had he even meant, telling Liam he supposed he was a man? Why had he argued with Sticks several times to deprecate his own validity as a man, when Sticks had always accepted him as one? His only certainty was that he wasn’t female: but he didn’t understand what the distinction could signify otherwise. He carded his french twist and shook his head.

“Alone. I’m going out alone. I need to clear my head. Will you be all right to watch the drugstore?”

He draped the Ant lace shawl around his neck brace, and tied it.

“My biometric sensors reach the entirety of the premises. And I’m already keeper of Gate City Drug’s entire chem stock. Ha-hah! Don’t you worry, Mister Carey. I can hold down the fort for you. Are you certain you’ll manage without your cane?”

He huffed and fastened a small drawstring bag to the waistband of his Leathers.

“Positive.”

“And what ought I do, if a customer calls after you in particular?”

“I shouldn’t be out more than an hour. If it’s an emergency, direct them to Bledsoe.”

He walked South on the Concourse, headed to the Food Court, but stopped near the Main Entrance checkpoint to his left. He spotted Hierosacristan Fresnel. He looked on as the bald woman traced her dark, bare hands along the uniformly streaked brilliant granite face between two storefronts. Eventually, he approached her, patient to interrupt her studious alarm only when he thought he could interject a word among her whirlwind thoughts.

“Fresnel? Is everything all right?”

“What?” She stopped a moment, but didn’t look to him. “I almost… didn’t hear you.”

“It is a bit noisy at this end of the mall. What are you up to? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Normally, when I greet the granite, I can tell where the whispers come from.” Her gaze wilded, almost as though she sought to locate a housefly by buzz alone. “Is it– Is it up there–”

He frowned.

“...Up where?”

She snapped to motion, to speed for the stairs beside the Food Court checkpoint, and he tried to follow. He could barely keep up on level ground, but on the stairs she outstripped him utterly. He stood panting on the landing halfway up the tiled L-shaped stairway. Looking on, he couldn’t relocate her. Concern outweighed his nuisance, that he’d lost her so easily, with her so clearly out of sorts. He convinced himself she was fine, and slouched on the handrail to catch his breath.

He’d never noticed the irregular patch to the flooring in front of the Customs House and the Food Court checkpoint. Vaguely circular, it had been retiled in a way which more reflected a repair than a design choice. No geometry he knew informed its alignment or patterning against the uniform basket-woven zigzag tile of the rest of the Concourse. He squinted at it, straightening his glasses. They must have removed a fountain, to repurpose the plumbing elsewhere in the property. The gaudy, mismatched tiles of various shapes had him wondering who’d done such an unsightly job paving one of the most traveled stretches of the Concourse. He was glad he couldn’t see it fully from ground level.

He descended the stairs to go to the Food Court as he’d intended. He flashed his Customs declaration slip at the checkpoint, but they still inspected the satchel. Entering the space teeming with the aromas of fresh food made up his mind he’d buy a snack once he’d concluded his errand.

He stepped up to the Gate City Blood Drive to speak with the short younger woman operating it.

“Can I interest you in donating blood to the Lane?” she asked him. “We pay Θ10 for a pint.”

“I’m the one paying Bledsoe to keep this booth open, actually. Melancholy.”

She connected long enough for a handshake.

“Right. The Pip-Boy. I knew that.” She straightened, and smoothed her lace smock. “I’m Nancy. I guess you’re here for a pick-up, then.”

“I am.”

She led him behind the counter to a small antique ice box at the back corner of the small booth, and opened its latched door to reveal eight vinyl bags of dark fluid. He couldn’t wholly hide his disappointment.

“That’s all we’ve managed in a week?”

“I think we’ve got a lot, all things considered. Like you said, we’ve only been at this for a week. Most of our takers have been Satellites.”

“The Laners don’t trust it yet, then.”

“Would you? I’m surprised anybody’s donated. Don’t get me wrong. I understand why we’re at this. I’ve read about medicine practices that use blood. But the average local doesn’t have that science background. I won’t tell you how many times I’ve heard whispers that it’s secretly for something wicked awful.”

He opened his mouth to object, but felt someone tug his hand. He whipped about face, but his agitation sublimated into confusion. A blonde girl stood before him in an oversized sweater over a pinafore with many skirts for a petticoat. She presented in both hands a mason jar of dark fluid. At the sight of the butcher knife she still held in her hand, he recognized her as the younger of the two Clark sisters. Wanda, wasn’t it? When he wouldn’t grab it, she murmured,

“You want blood, right?”

Her eyes twinkled like she’d solved the mysteries of the universe.

‘Choly swallowed.

“Where is it from?”

She wrestled with her shyness, and offered more insistently.

“Blood is blood, isn’t it?” she asked, more clearly this time. She managed a smile.

He chewed at his lips. No way graced him, to explain it wasn’t so simple, without coming off like he was talking down to her. His eyes fixed uneasy on the knife in her hand.

“I was going to buy lunch.” Mouth askew, he fished out ten pulls for her. “Don’t make it a habit, all right?”

He wouldn’t hand them over until she nodded. She shoved the jar into his hand, to pocket the money. An enormous grin burst from her, and she bounded off skipping.

“Phin!” she called. “Phin, it worked!!”

He could’ve just wasted his lunch money on butcher’s blood, but he also could have in his possession a jar of human blood with questionable origin. A fresh revulsion washed over him, that no matter the story of it, this could become edible.

He glanced back at Nancy, uneasy.

“She’s been pestering me for two days,” she groaned, “and here you are folding your first time she frolics up.”

“If she comes back, don’t buy from her. Not unless she’ll let you draw directly.”

“What are you going to–”

“--I’m not about to disagree with anyone wielding a large knife.” He sighed and rubbed at his nose bridge under his glasses. “I may have complained about the yield so far, but it is enough for me to work with. Do you have a cooler I can borrow?”

“I’ve got an old reel case, yeah.” Nancy hefted the octagonal steel canister from under the front desk, and lined its bottom with ice chunks from the top half of the fridge. She tucked the blood packs atop that. “You’ve got to bring it back next time you come for a pickup, though. I’ve only got the one.”

“Got it.”

When he tucked the jar in as well, she gripped the canister so he couldn’t take it.

“You’re not going to use it, are you?”

He forced a smile.

“Of course not.” When she didn’t believe him, he added, “It’s not medically viable like this. We both know that.”

She relented. He inspected the contents one last time and buckled shut the lid’s wire clamp, then thanked Nancy and was on his way with the shipment of blood.

He couldn’t risk quality concerns burning down his business before it even took off. But he also knew, as he hefted the canister gripping its leather handle in both hands, that he’d fed her several half-truths that could easily starve him. Eight pints would barely eke out the case of Stimpaks for Yancy’s order. There’d be none left over for him to mix Melancholia. He couldn’t say what creature’s blood had filled the jar, but as long as the chemical processes which transformed blood into a Stimpak yielded a Stimpak, his desperation justified for him that a compromise would net him two or three for himself. He’d just have to process the jar’s contents separate from… the rest of it.

A mosquito doesn’t sharpen its nose .[3] His nausea ruined his composure returning through the checkpoint. When prompted to explain the blood, he joked that he was considering becoming a full-time vampire. See’s didn’t appreciate his humor. They waved him through, too grossed out by it to question whether he was actually joking at all.

On the Concourse proper, his ears began to ring. He stopped in place to chastise himself for accidental overexertion. The not-gold light blared solely neon-red all around. He fumbled not to drop the cooler in the reflex to try to grip his splitting-second headache. His equilibrium had him unable to tell whether he or the room was spinning. Almost imperceptible, metronomic flickers nicitated past him ad infinitum. A weak groan fluttered from him. He noticed he stood in the patch of strange tiles, but couldn’t bring himself to move, beyond tottering.

If only your legs would just let you find someplace to sit.

Your tinnitus ramps to screaming decibels. You jerk your legs to lock the knee joints of your Leathers, so you won’t fall. An unplaceable chemical smell affronts you, musky but distinctly citrus. Vertigo whips your gaze around in futile desperation for someone, anyone, to help you. Those around you pay you no mind, encircling you with shovels in hand. The rhythmic drudgery of their disinterment traps you in some quavering zoetropic loop.[4]

You shut your eyes in dread.

The next you open them, you no longer stand on the Concourse. Surrounded on all sides by earth, before you lay a mass of fulgent tubificid fibers, attended by hundreds of ants with the same cyclical tempo as the excavators. The white mass spreads outward to part from a corpse. You scream when this filament seems to sense the prize in your grip. You fall backward. You hold up a hand up though aware you can’t possibly shield yourself from becoming part of some luckless yawning whale fall.

A clammy sweat overtook him as his breathing steadied. He had not fallen, and he could tell he had stood in the Concourse all along. The lighting had returned to its typical green-red counterpoise. He rubbed at his forehead and eyes with one hand. Still panting, he glanced to those around him. Passersby hurried past him.

“He’s dead,” he whispered to himself with grieving certainty. As the words fell from him, his heart lurched. He had no idea who.

Before he could oppugn his grasp on reality, he heard an argument erupting. A crowd had formed around the indoor entrance of the Sutter Grove anchor. He ambled toward it, only to halt mid-step and glance down recoiling in sensation akin to broken glass cracking beneath one’s shoe. Stepping off the pattern rent in him a prickling chill.

“What do you mean, you haven’t got an explanation!”

“You bastard Rad-Eaters are screwing with the lights!”

“The fuck are these visions!?”

“The mall looked flooded!”

“Glassworks is looking into it,” a voice insisted, projected but dulcet. “Do stay calm. They are visions, and nothing more.”

Didn’t Yancy say these shifts were normal? ‘Choly gripped the cooler tighter, and stepped up to the sidelines to listen more intently.

“If I wanted my eyes screwed up, I’d stare right into the glass.”

“I couldn’t hear anything! Total silence!”

“We’re going to go blind at this rate!”

At the heart of the crowd stood a ghoul in rags, small and stately. ‘Choly’s jaw sagged. This ghoul was a Child of Atom, and he radiated an observable lime green glow from deep inside his body. The ghoul noticed the only person not yelling at him. He reached out a gloved hand to request ‘Choly be given room to speak.

“My child, do speak up. I’m audience to all, though I pray fear or anger do not grip you as they do the others.”

‘Choly sputtered as everyone else glowered at him.

“I, I never did know what the Sutter Grove anchor was.”

The glowing ghoul took the statement for inquiry.

“A history lesson.” He clapped, and motion for ‘Choly. “Come along, then. I’ll give you a tour.”

The crowd groaned and told off them both.

“If it involves stairs,” he apologized, “you’ll have to be patient with me.”

“We can keep it to the lower level, if you like.” The ghoul turned to him with a small smile. “Thank you for the excuse to duck away from the contention.”

“...Of course…”

His surroundings stupefied him. While the majority of the Lane’s architecture exemplified a post-apocalyptic art deco revival, Sutter Grove felt nearly unnaturally grown this way, in the way art nouveau had an inorganic organicness to it. He could recognize some kind of geometry to the angles and curves of the broad vaulted halls and doors. The startling chiaroscuro of the interior of this place nearly felt as though everything that shone within it defied in holographic preterition the paradoxical nothingness of the dark. He didn’t know why light would refract in this way in this space, and he didn’t want to.

‘Choly shadowed the ghoul, awed that his glow cast an aureole about his crown. His gaze fell to his feet a moment, to ground himself, and he got lost in the strange enameled tiling, and its occasional inclusion of long, delicate recessed armillary lighting. He thought again to the red shift, and wished he hadn’t.

“What is this place?”

“Ant Lane’s school is held on the lower level,” the ghoul told him. “On the upper level is the library and the Children’s dormitory.”

This ghoul captivated ‘Choly. Bedecked in rags, glowing beads had been woven into the fabric with twisted wires. At his waist, he carried various sizes of armillary bulbs like censers. Further beads were strung on the laces of his otherwise untied basketball sneakers, and he had on at least five individual socks. Faint patches of pale hair still crested his scalp. The black radiation trefoil which streaked over both orbits and down his chin failed to fully obscure the glow emanating from his turbinates and eye sockets.

“I’m Melancholy. We’re neighbors. Sort of.” He had so many questions of this ghoul’s physiology. The best he could do was, “You… glow.”

“I’m Haidinger, the Sacristan of Ant Lane. I oversee what the Canon curates, and I supervise the Children who maintain the armillaries throughout the mall, too.” Haidinger’s smile tightened, and his cheeks flushed a more appreciable chartreuse. “There aren’t as many Undying amongst our family as one would hope, but yes. How astute. My blessings from Atom are unique even then. I wear Her Light on my surface. My world-vessel shuttles onward as a beacon. You’ve been drawn out of some darkness, haven’t you?”

“...I don’t know what I saw just now.”

This cultist couldn’t possibly know what he had just seen. ‘Choly wanted to ask if Fresnel were okay. Whether something happened where the tiles changed. Whether someone had died. What it all meant! It felt the worst taste possible to press the Sacristan to explain what had the crowd so distraught just now, but it bewildered him that it hadn’t sounded like anyone had seen the same thing as anyone else… but were without question seeing things that were neither physical nor present.

“Oh my child!” When Haidinger exclaimed at the Child rushing past in the halls, ‘Choly jumped. The teen turned like he’d been caught by a parent. He held in his hands a large plate-sized tin. “Brother Thad, for the love of all that radiates. It’s Division Day tomorrow. You know better than to have films checked out so late into storm season.”

“It’s tradition to show a horror movie for Division Week,” Thad justified, unable to apologize. “We’ve had a romance, a western, and three comedies.”

“Routine is our orbital,” Haidinger appreciated. “Here, I’ll return it to the Vault for you.”

“Yes, Sacristan.” Thad nodded a short bow. “Thank you.”

“Have you prepared for tomorrow? On with you. Qu’Atom vous garde.”

“Qu’Atom vous garde,” Thad chirped back, nodding again.

Haidinger beamed as Thad exited with the delight of a student dismissed for a long weekend.

“Forgive me, but… Division Day?”

Haidinger’s attention returned to his guest, and his grace thinned to a somber kindness.

“Every year Atom’s Children commemorate the day She reckoned this world from the last. This domain’s birthday, in so many words. The Before was scoured away, leaving our Now to shine brighter than ever. The ancestors of those who walk the world today were spared Atom’s culling centuries ago. You and I would not stand here today, were it not for Atom giving our ancestors the crevasses of shelter on Division Day. It is our holiest holiday. We celebrate for six days. On the seventh, we rest.”

It appalled ‘Choly, to hear they delighted in what had become to the planet. Of course the Children of Atom believed this–even their priest here followed a script, propped up with notions he led the lost home. But it revolted him even more, to be reminded that he should have died that day. A possibility curdled his envy.

“You mentioned a Vault. Did they… did they freeze you as well?”

“Ahh, a Vault dweller. It’s been some time since I last met one of your lineage. You didn’t reemerge yesterday, but… perhaps the day before, then. I’m unfamiliar with your meaning, but no Vault-Tec artifacts lay here.” Haidinger looked to the tin in hand, and back to ‘Choly. “Some tour I’ve given. At the very least, you must see the Vault.”

“As long as it’s downstairs,” ‘Choly accepted, following to keep up.

“Ant Lane is considered a vault by some, but it was first built as a fortress. The ancient entities of RobCo and Lockreed collaborated to erect a building as secure and stable as a vault deep in the earth. The mall saw a brief boon of commercial prosperity, but its luster faded. Ownership changed hands. The second investors funded extensive renovations. They’re responsible for the transplant of the literal tons of brilliant Barre granite of Ant Lane’s Concourse[5], as well as the bronze Aldermen which watch from above. The mall saw its Grand Reopening only a month before Atom’s Rapture, and it was crowded beyond measure that holiest Saturday.”

‘Choly noticed Haidinger had led him back near the entrance. He frowned.

“The mall itself is not a vault, though it functions as a shelter. A New Safe Confinement. To secure the means to develop and build Pheasant Lane Mall, RobCo and Lockreed built something of a proof of concept: a Diorama, fully functional.”

On display in the main entrance’s atrium was a miniature replica of the property, meticulously maintained to continue reflecting its original image. The roof gave a slight crackle of static when the Sacristan lifted it with one hand, to show ‘Choly what lay lined up from one end of its Lilliputian Concourse to the next: dozens of film reel tins and holotapes, crammed amongst all the various fixtures that used to stand inside the mall.[6]

“There’s not much equipment left in Gate City that can play the media we protect by storing it in the Diorama Vault. The Mall is safe, but after what happened twenty years ago, people have stopped trusting any electronic technologies. Especially the… radio. We mostly curate out of observance. The Canon is one of the only remaining repositories of film and holotapes left in the Hinter. Much of our efforts apply to preserving history and the arts. We do everything we can to retain and recover the knowledge of what Atom burned away, to be reminded of the reality of Division, and to be humbled in the reality of the brevity of our time along this coil. We all come to be, and we all eventually become.”

“--Wait.” Saucer-eyed, ‘Choly stopped himself from snatching the tin from Haidinger. “That’s My Husband the Mutant. Wait, you mean the Children run the Starlight Drive-In projector!”

“So it is.” Haidinger looked to the reel tin’s label, then tucked it in its place before lowering the roof of the Diorama shut. “And yes, yes we do. We try to share pre-Division experiences with the world, at every opportunity. But storms damage film and technology equally in the Hinter. We abstain from film during the winter months, to protect it.”

‘Choly fidgeted with his Pip-Boy, recalling the other day. The radio picked up some unintelligible washed conversation, but he couldn’t place it as belonging to anything.

“I was listening to one of them the other day. It sounded like… Love Sets Sail. Only thing I know Vera Keyes for.”

Haidinger clasped his hands together imploringly.

“Oh please stop that. You’ll get everyone upset again, if they figure out you’re the source of that awful noise. And you’ll do best to not do that in the future, if you’re interested in keeping that Pip-Boy.” When ‘Choly complied without hesitation, Haidinger lit up again. “Is that what you mean? That you listened to Love Sets Sail? The audio still survives in the reel!? What do you mean, you know Vera Keyes?”

“The actress in it. That movie made her career, back in the day. I don’t know much about romance movies. I’m far more interested in horror as a whole. My Husband the Mutant is one of my all-time favorites.” ‘Choly melted dopey on the spot. “I could recite that movie from memory, radio or no. I’ve seen it so many times already.”

“Oh by Atom, you know the script for it?” Haidinger’s eyes widened. “What Vault-Tec Vault shows film!”

In the background, the pair could hear the decibels in the Concourse mounting behind them, but they mutually disregarded it in favor of nerding out.

“Hah, yeah. It wasn’t in the Vault. My friend Sticks took me to every local showing for a year, where we were living. I’m a bit sad it sounds like there won’t be any more movies for the rest of the year, but I suppose it makes sense for an outdoor theater to shutter when it gets too cold to be outdoors.”

“Please tell me you’ll still be at the Lane in the Spring,” the Sacristan begged. “And please, could I implore you to sit with me and help me transcribe My Husband the Mutant?”

‘Choly had plied the delight of two different ghouls in a week, and he grinned, choking up his grip on his cooler-tin.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Cracks, snaps, and thuds of a fistfight erupted down the way. Still, in that moment, only Haidinger existed to ‘Choly. …Until he recognized one of the outcries was Sticks.

“You mother fuckers are trying to sink our business!” Sticks swung at See’s from their armlock on him. He managed to hook one in the face, only to get booted in the ass and then kicked again. “You feel big? You feel real–”

Angel emerged at the GCD front door, uncertain how or whether to intervene.

Sergeant Bea walked up as See’s scooped Sticks up again. They’d already roughed him up, but from the looks of it, he’d managed to slap around a few of them for their trouble, too. She chewed on her cigar and shoved her assault rifle in his face.

“Terms of your lease. From the sound of it, you’re comfortable violating them. You live under our roof, you play by our rules.” She butt-stroked him in the shoulder, and he spilled into the floor in front of Angel. “NOW GET THE FUCK IN YOUR LEASE AND STAY LIKE YOU MEAN IT. THERE WILL NOT BE A SECOND WARNING.”

Several uninvolved See’s guards floated through, checking on each individual lease.

One of the involved See’s guards recognized ‘Choly across the way and brandished a finger his direction. He nearly dropped his cooler-tin. All the color washed from his face as he scrambled as fast as possible toward the guards.

“I don’t know what this is all about I am so sorry please don’t shoot,” he stammered out.

Bea shoved him just enough for the satisfaction of it, then leaned into the rolling doors with a sneer as See’s pulled it shut.

“Hope you’re storm ready, gentlemen.”

With her parting shot, she locked them in from the outside, and appointed two guards at the door.

______________________________ 

[0] Prepare for a density of optical, magnetoacoustical, and mathematical wordplay as we close the first arc of the book. 0A: “Dissolving views” is the term for an early predecessor to animation, where one scene is depicted on the front of a print, while the backside has another; shining light through the print a certain way would yield a transition between the front and back. In a way, they’re two parts of the same image, their relationship adjoined by the addition of light. 0B: “Figure-eight immersion” is one of several forms of Klein bottle, the 3D cousin of the more famous Möbius strip. (0C: Armillary spheres are a stylized Klein bottle.)

[1] Use of darts, without a gun to fire them: Referential to the fact Syringer ammunition is stored in the Aid tab, not the Ammo tab… and can be used by the Sole Survivor. (As far as I know, they aren’t programmed to do anything to the player, but they still get consumed if you interact with them in your inventory, rather than via the reload menu on a Syringer.)

[2] Stylization of a term in double angle brackets: I drop references to Roadside Picnic wherever I find cracks to cram them into. It’s just an «empty» nod… or is it?

[3] A mosquito doesn’t sharpen its nose. (комар носа не подточит) Idiomatic. A line from ‘Choly’s “Filarial” keyhole erotica from “Déjà Rêvé” (Ch80), referencing the Bloodbug’s devastating jag to his ribcage in “Recrudescence” (Ch36). There’s no room for error. A mosquito’s precision always finds a gap it can feed on.

[4] Zoetrope, phenakistoscope, praxinoscope: Various predecessors to modern animation techniques, reliant on rapidly rotating cylinders or discs, the interplay of light, and mirrors. The predecessor to the dynamo, the Faraday’s disc inspired development of the zoetrope.

[5] Pheasant Lane Mall’s most significant remodel to date occurred when Simon bought it and removed all the characteristic earthen tones in favor of sleek, sterile white and silver interiors. Some patches of its original tiling remain in tact, both on walkways and around storefronts.

[6] “Unlike the jailer-surveyor, the dioramic spectator was not attempting mastery over human subjects, but was instead engaged in the pleasures of mastery over an artificially constructed world, the pleasure of immersion in a world not present.... [T]his notion of the confined place combined with a notion of journey that is present simultaneously in cinematic spectation.” Anna Friedberg’s “The Mobilized and Virtual Gaze in Modernity: Flâneur/Flâneuse,” printed in Mirzoeff’s Visual Culture Reader, p.261. (In this PDF of the text, Chapter 22 starts on p.270 of the file, and “The panopticon versus the diorama” is the last of the five pages. The whole chapter is reading-worthy.) Analytic parallels drawn between the panopticon and the diorama, via discussion of the way flânerie impacts behavior. The directionality of optics changes everything about its impact for both source and subject.

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[purkinje-effect]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 85: Pr¡soner’s C!nema

Table of Contents. Third Instar, Chapter 16. Go to previous. Go to next. CWs: Unreality, religious themes, nonsexual voyeurism/surveillance, drug use, nonlethal child and animal violence, insects, cosmic nihilism, thalassophobia. I felt bad about the surfeit of footnotes, until I realized that this is the first truly Berries chapter since Flyblown. lol eye of the storm jokes, √-1, see's seizes and sees seas see? (Title card and chapter quote, footnoted as [0].)

“...[T]he granite Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses Its hints of earlier and other creation:… The sea has many voices, Many gods and many voices….

And the ragged rock in the restless waters, Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it; On a halcyon day it is merely a monument, In navigable weather it is always a seamark To lay a course by: but in the sombre season Or the sudden fury, is what it always was."

— T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, "The Dry Salvages"

True to Angel's narrative, near Burlington Glassworks Mayor Knott concluded a heated discussion with several Children of Atom. She did not require See's instruction to seize the Lane's attention: instead, she upturned leather palms and gazed upon bronze faces which hung in attendance immemorial over the entire Concourse. Everyone stopped in place, and the crowded din faded out in whispers. No longer dampened by the sound of the population, the storm's rolling infrasound echoed all the more unearthly down the corridors of the mall.

The See's cordoning the GCD parted, guns crossed, and unlocked its front doors so that its inhabitants could hear the Mayor's speech. Sticks circumnavigated 'Choly, and tried to squeeze out the doors as far as the guards would permit. Behind them all, 'Choly questioned how the entire Concourse could have known to give her berth, let alone witness her now. But then, she commenced, and his jaw dropped at the too-perfect acoustics of the granitic interior. Knott's voice resounded with clarity and depth, as though she alone possessed a microphone to some vast bronze auditorium devoid of flutter echo.

"I know you lot are rushed to get comfortable before the nor'easter hits. The Hall has extended significant relief for the extra crowding I'm sure we can all already feel. The Children can provide far more expert provisions for what comes next. It is critical that you hear me. Many of you weren't here two decades ago, but you all know the stories. Similar conditions are upon us! Rest easy: there will be no risk to life or limb, provided we support one another. We are still protected from the rads, ice, and wind. We are the primary hazard. Please understand. The light effects are a symptom, not a cause."

With Knott behind him, Haidinger stood where instructed, wherein she held his gloved upturned hands in hers. As he began to speak, he shied from the notion his voice might carry in kind, only to be shaken that it carried so far.

"It oversimplifies our situation, to compare it to 2258. My studies analyze that event at every opportunity. It was the last time the Aurora affected the Concourse, but the building still provided some dampening of its effects. The Aurora of this storm will arrive completely unobstructed. As such, tomorrow's Division Day will be unprecedented for Ant Lane. The Aurora may place undue strain upon those who do not travel a Hinter orbital, who have not wintered a Granitic Mass. Be not afraid! Yea, though even Atom's whisper can deafen, She cradles us within these holy walls. We walk hand in hand, neighbors, and learn together what the granite has to tell us. Community is our Foundation! The Children will begin our door to door Division Day visitation, doling all the grace and hospitality we have to give. Sutter Grove will provide spiritual counsel on request. And while doubtful, should the Aurora ail anyone, we have remedies for you, as you'll allow."

As Haidinger and Knott dropped their hands to their sides, the decibels of the people's murmurs eased back in to match the actual sound level. 'Choly recalled that one benefit of the Berry Mentats intuited his proximity to other living things: he appreciated in his Deenwood days that with Berries, unannounced approaches startled him far less often. Though he could hear people again besides the otherworldly soapbox, he still found himself trying to lipread. Before he could glean anything Haidinger and Fresnel discussed with Knott, See's shouldered him and Sticks both back inside to re-lock the drugstore.

'Choly steadied himself at the front window with his cane, still reacclimating from even a few days without it. He couldn't lipread the Hall figureheads' discussion, but he could make out bits of what the community had to say. Rather than lambast the Children for the armillary shifts, the Laners now bickered with an overwhelmingly condescending Satellite population. Satellites jeered that, for having such well maintained immersion in armillary lighting, the Laners were so coddled by their elevated social status that these experiences came as foreign and alarming. See's intervened far less frequently now than they had when Laners blamed the Children.

That's the Fog, you nitwits, the Satellites mocked. Haven't you been out in the Fog before?

Clearly, 'Choly guessed, the weapons ban mostly seeks to cut out lethal altercations, but who's to stop a thrown punch or a series of low blows? The First Amendment protected free speech, not assholes. And they can't blame me for not knowing a thing about armillaries—I've only been here a month now or so.

His indignation collected in his turbinates, only to diffuse in a crinkled sigh. The Children, animated in their mirthful procession in the promise of an unprecedented religious event, distracted him.

Sticks huffed. Rebuffed, he lost all interest in the goings-on outside the lease, and returned to the living area. 'Choly followed him only with a glance of resignation, keen to give his companion some space. Standing in the dark of the store-front for a time, he eventually retreated to return to the stock room. Sticks had reclined to nap, and he let him.

'Choly finished filling the last of the Stimpaks, then cross-referenced his texts regarding Wanda's treasure. Nothing for Stimpaks mentioned blood origin—and he could interpret such an omission as indication either that any donor would suffice, or that no donor save the recipient's specimen would. Sooner than lock himself in indecision over a possible universal oversight, he prepared the benzoquinolines and processed the jar. When the substance resembled what his previous treatment had yielded, he lidded the beaker, and gathered a bag of silt bean flour, a tube of toothpaste, a bottle of cinnamon mouthwash… and a bottle of Melancholy's salts.

He looked up from his work, when a knock at the front door rang out. Sticks rose and addressed their visitors. 'Choly came to the open stock room door at the unfamiliar voices. Following Sticks inside, three humble Children of Atom bobbled radiation-ringed tonsures.

"Neighbor, please do not suggest that we intrude," a pilgrim murmured. She carried with her a large basket of bread and fruits. "See's cares not for your comfort during Division Day. Do let us attend you."

"I'm kind of busy," 'Choly said. "And we don't lack much in the way of amenities."

"You're interrupting him," Sticks insisted, elated that someone agreed they should leave. "You couldn't spare a loaf, though, could you? Smells heavenly."

"Oh, um. Of course." She beamed and handed him a paper-wrapped boule, and produced a small jar as well. "There's also sunflower preserves."[1]

The ghoul accepted the gifts with a smile.

One of the other Children was intent to scrutinize the interior layout of the lease. He paused his orison when 'Choly coughed about it, and turned to the lease's owners.

"It is customary for Her Children to inspect the soundness of each house," the Child explained. "As did our forebears, so do we make all necessary preparations."

"That how you kids figured out about the building damage?"

"Sticks!"

"What?" Sticks gesticulated with the bread. "An honest question."

"What do you know?" the third Child demanded.

"There is no damage," the praying Child insisted, choosing his words. "It is… a malfunction."

"Brother Bertrand, don't speak of things beyond you." The first stuttered a nervous chuckle. "None of us have yet learned how to care for Ant Lane's inscrutable structure. Such questions, you can ask the Sacristan."

"They sure don't teach you much about the things they expect you to do." Sticks set the food on the cabinet counter. "I suppose I wouldn't bother, either, if I knew my new hires were eager to scurry off to their next stop on a perpetual road trip."

"Our elders teach us plenty." The third Child soured at him. "You may be Undying, but you still turn away Atom's warmth from your heart."

Relish glinted in Sticks's dark eyes.

"No, I turn away people who insist on coming into my house uninvited. If you won't leave until you've accomplished whatever you're set to accomplish, what will hurry things along?"

The three hemmed as they looked to one another.

"Our good will brings you food, company, comfort, security. Everything a survivor of Division Day would require in Atomic shelter, we bring to you."

"A scripted answer, but I'll accept having a program to follow."

"You've graciously given us food," 'Choly said, "and cased our lease. But we're comfortable, and don't want company."

Sticks broke off a piece of bread and shoved it in 'Choly's hand.

"Couldn't have said it better." He spoke through his teeth. "We have each other. Isn't that right?"

'Choly looked at the rustic heel. He missed Angel already.

"Well, yes."

"I suppose then we've provided what we're able. Allow us to complete our blessing, and we'll trouble you no more."

'Choly opened up the jar and used the back of a spoon for a dripper. He took a bite of the tart-sweet floral breadstuff. No matter how solid food tended to treat him, he could always savor a complex interplay of flavor and texture… especially when he could say he'd last eaten nearly twenty-four hours ago. He took another bite, and chewed thoroughly before speaking.

"We might be annoyed, but we are appreciative. Really."

The Children brightened. Bertrand resumed his Keb prayer, and the others joined him. They allowed Sticks to lead them back to the front, and nodded to the pair while they awaited See's escort.

"Atom keep you, neighbors," the first blessed. "And may this Division Day seed some faith in you."

"Qu'Atom vous garde," the others agreed.

"Goodnight," Sticks dismissed.

Before the doors shut, they already resumed a low perpetual canon: The stars shall bend their voices, and every stone shall cry…[2] 'Choly could now distinguish the deep baseline vibrations of the building from the quiet hymn all the Children in the mall wove in round. They cut in and out of singing and humming as they performed tasks, only to resume at a future interval upon completing their task. Between the conflicting auditory sources and the soundproof front window glass, even the English lyrics muddled unintelligible, though he could still make out the tune in places.

Sticks returned to the bed. Reclining, he fidgeted with his Pip-Boy with a dull frown. 'Choly walked over to the stock room door, but turned to his companion.

"It's not like you to turn away free attention like that."

Sticks frowned harder at his wrist.

"Well you sure didn't sound like you wanted them sticking around, yourself. I've told you before, those cultists trouble me. Today hasn't been the greatest. Bugger off, all right? Busy yourself doing fuck all back there, for all I care. And whenever you're done in the back, make sure to lock it up. I need some peace of mind with all this Angel malarkey."

"I, all right."

'Choly couldn't quantify what could have so upset Sticks, but he supposed it could just as easily be chalked up to the culmination as soon as any one part. With a fist of carbohydrates in his system and a sigh, he resumed his task. He could overhear Sticks doling some of the loaf for himself, and, for his companion's sake, he wondered whether the Children intended to visit again during their lockdown.

He did not load the Stimpak-like substance into pneumatic syringes, since he would in turn empty them. He referred to the Merrick Index's entry for the Limit 115 suppressant, to compare to the ratio he'd used last time from memory in Lowell. Going off the ingredients of each component, he loathed the implications in chalking up his comparable precision to routine. As he worked, he appreciated that his hot plate housed a magnet stirrer. He ought to have felt guiltier adding hubeine to the mix without Angel around—without Angel awake, he asserted--to contest it.

Unlike last time, the homogeneous mixture did not separate. The batch narrowly yielded three Melancholia. Two, he bottled, and the remainder, he drank right from the beaker, as not to dirty another dish. He struggled to reconcile with the origins of the blood, but the medical and nutritional benefits outweighed any consequence to himself. The cinnamon offended his mouth far less than the mint. He'd take it.

Sticks was asleep when he next poked his head out to check on him. 'Choly shrugged and polished off his fresh meal substitute, then rinsed the glassware in the bathroom sink. Hubeine's low, although heavier and faster-acting than the familiar morphine, did not seem to enervate or otherwise impair him. He hemmed. While he had no idea how his companion could possibly sleep at a time like this, he had no idea how he himself could possibly sleep either. He put his gloves back on and deposited the glass on the living area cabinet counter.

He returned to stand in the stock room doorway. Gazing at Angel's inert form, his mind replayed Angel's final moments of consciousness, and the Mister Handy's bated confidence entrusting the entire drugstore's inventory to him. He prayed Angel could turn back on when all this was over and done.

The visions could only increase in intensity and frequency, the deeper inland the storm progressed. No, he'd show Angel how responsible he could be. He'd show them both. Without others to act as his reason or modulation, he exercised his own agency. He could prove he didn't need to abstain fully, in order to exercise self-control. His strategy was not borne of impulsiveness, either, he insisted. Convenient access may not have justified his pending chem dosage, but it did serve it. Necessity compelled him to engineer a very specific, tailored result.

No longer watched—without Sticks, Angel, or anyone to put his actions under a microscope—he had room to breathe. It would hold him back, to moralize his choices, especially what he chose to put in his body. He navigated in the dark front end, using only the egg-sized twin armillary baubles to make his selections.

His proclivity had always been to watch, had it not? The gaze held in it power; to know something was to observe it, preserve it. He intended to maximize efficiency and output for an extended session of capture lever stenography. Anything penned by holotape risked magnetic field corruption, but he couldn't help but abide by habit anyway: at the very least, the familiar pastime would carry him through this ordeal.

By the light of his baubles, he would pen-scrawl periodic annotations to later compare against any garbling in his transcription. Composition by both pen and Pip-Boy would forever remind him of his Flyblown session.

No Jet this time, he thought, so let's see how it compares, for reality to be the hallucinogen.

His Foucauldian cocktail entailed the following: Melancholia, to nourish, bolster, and distract from any bodily aches. Melon anodyne, to invigorate and delay the need for sleep. Coffee, both to combine its caffeine with the anodyne's eugeroics and to comfort. And Berry Mentat, to hone perception and maximize comprehension. The hubeine in his meal replacement would curtail any possible migraine for choosing Berries over the original flavor. And so, partaking in these chemical benefits, he opted to continue people-watching, and returned to his seat at the bay window. Unfettered from the psychology of contagion and starvation, he became observation manifest. His neighbors need not know of his voyeurism to validate it.[3]

He could sleep when he was dead… or at least, when this was over.

A proficiency in science came with it a lagging second knowledge of mathematics. 'Choly's unconscious eye traced the rolling sequences and the intervals of the chroma of the light, and with a certain whimsy, he could follow their hyperbolic oscillations as though some melodic weirding of trigonometry. Though he couldn't fully deduce the formula of the fractal sequences, he could correlate the patterns to the intervals at which the wind howled. 'Choly marveled in the mounting mathematical rhythm, and listened for some cipher by which to hear the messages carried by the wind.

The Children of Atom carried on as expected. Fueled by disaster panic, the Satellites mostly stocked up on shelf-stable food and entertainment, for the timeframe they would be shuttered from the Concourse. Laners staffed their leases at peak presence, aiming to maximize sales profit and deter the allure of shoplifting. Of the two, the impending unknown experience of a full-force nor'easter rattled the Laners far more. More arguments, more repetitive behaviors, and a greater unease manifested in the sheltered than in those sheltering.

The high winds and frost of the nor'easter buffeted the gabled skylights which ran the full length of the Concourse. Amid the mounting magnetic field, ultraviolet plumes bloomed up to coronate the Lane's denizens. 'Choly skepticized the onset of his ability to see auras with the naked eye. He questioned the origins of the various things he'd ingested in the past hour, but could not say any of them seemed likely hallucinogenic, not even the hubeine. No, these 'auras' most plausibly resulted from the magnetic field's effect on his biology, under the Berries' effects.[4]

The next hard light shift alternated in an equilibrium of green and red. A certain rictus possessed him as he watched rootlike fibers overtake the Concourse. Like ghostly kudzu, these fibers grew fast and thick enough to impact the paths by which people traversed the space, as well as their gait, as they stepped around and over immaterial winding gnarled knees. And yet, from the fibers' absence of aura, the Berries demonstrated for 'Choly that they were not living things, and should not elicit the perceptive flinch of any real threat. Something about such a deduction felt off, but he couldn't finger why.

'Choly stayed put even after curfew. See's shepherded those staying at the Anchor Inn northward, while the Satellites rooming in leases required that tenant to remain locked up. At first, he thought the Children joined the Satellites at Anchor to stay for the night, but they made repeat trips for hours. The church members qualified as Laners, of course, as they both staffed a lease and roomed in an anchor, but they fell in a different social status from Laners outright. They could go more freely than the Laners—at least, for this holiday—and with that privilege, they aided the overcrowding-weary staff of Anchor in dispensing hospitality throughout the night.

It was true: the armillaries' chroma was not the cause of the visions. As the Concourse gradually dimmed with the application of curtains and relocation of glass, this revelation became all the more apparent to 'Choly in the fashion by which available light illuminated image and reality all the same. But light did not exist in this space: only color.[0] The armillaries' wavelength, which he elected to call sigma radiation, defied what little he knew of thermodynamics.[5] He questioned whether the human eye only interpreted such a wavelength as possessing color, perhaps averaging incongruous sensory data rather than perceiving any property directly.[6] The Berries' ultraviolet aura smoked just as brightly as before, a variation to this place's typical hues which only served to fascinate him further.

No wonder trips outside hurt so much.

With the Concourse armillaries curtained, and the GCD's armillaries in the back half, the spatial arrangement of chroma blurred his sense of scale in adjacent leases; in conjunction with the Foucaldian cocktail pulling him into a full sense of third-person, everything felt somehow all the more like a model of the real thing—if any of this constituted reality. From his vantage, he could see the pottery shop to the left, the shoe dealer across the way, the entryway to Sutter Grove, and to the right the Glassworks entrance. The handrails and ledge obstructed most of his view upstairs, but the irony only compounded his loathing, that he could still make out the presence of color in the doll shop long into the night. A dread of infinitesimal smallness gripped him, knowing of the diorama at the Grove's entrance: he asserted not that the diorama might contain a model of itself, but rather, an even larger model contained this one.[7] But even then, this arrangement en abyme lasted only as long as any of his neighbors kept their armillaries uncurtained, and he outlasted many.[8] Only the Children's valence to and from Sutter Grove persisted, in the end, a vigil by armillary on the eve of Division Day.

It began at 1:54am.[9]

The infrasounds rounded to more of a fringe echo, cradling and containing their locality as though an aura noticeable only through a human's other senses. Yet, the noise surpassed any rudimentary ken of sound. At once both infinitely more complex and infinitely easier for 'Choly to read the pattern of it, the chirping reverberations of the magnetism and radio pollution harmonized with the infrasound like an nth-dimensional Lissajous pendulum[10]. He strained for some sensory input by which his feeble mortal form could parse the development, somehow more profound and sinister than any utterance flung down these hallways long past midnight.[11]

A great peal swept the Lane, like the sharp deep cut of stone stroking stone. The layered euphonic chord lingered as though substance. 'Choly straightened in his seat. The sound had awakened many. At once, the green-red shift ceased its additive effect, and offset in a manner he could only consider looking through 3D glasses, without the glasses; he no longer interpreted the chroma with a golden overlay. Again came a metallic wavering, reverberations alternating directionality swayed by forces outside the source of the sound itself. The entire structure vibrated, between the two centuries of mall traffic, and all the vitality which preceded its construction. Crackling came from overhead, and he leaned out into the bay window: what he could only describe as electrical arcs jittered in an irregular, intermittent current amongst the bronze faces.

The Aurora unraveled slowly at first, a ribbon of strange parametrics, flowing in a red and green gradient through the whiteout canvas above the skylights. Exponentially, it flowed outward in a curtain of fractals, spilling a deep blue across the ceiling of the mall which poured a concentrated cyan light all down the Concourse. The stink of pine and brine trailed along it. Wherein the Aurora passed through the armillary chandeliers, their luminosity refracted to cast the chroma of the glass as true colored light, commixing with the Aurora's golden shadow and casting bizarre benthic caustics. The more he could process and intuit the patterns, the less he felt he could term the constellation of energies converging at the nexus of their coordinates a fractal at all.

Something brushed his face. A hand gesture to wipe away the errant lock of hair implicated a betrayal not of gravity, but of fluidity. Glancing around him, articles of all kinds began to behave as though underwater, most evident in the undulations of cord and textile. His breathing fluttered amid the nascent air pressure of silence.

Within the Aurora, images took shape. Great elegant headless figures, high as the ceiling, dragged their torsos through the curtains of light. The hands of their six arms possessed too many thick, callus-padded fingers. A vertical orifice ran from between their shoulders all the way down their guts, teeming with long, lithe tendrils. They had no legs by which to propel themselves, instead reliant upon thick ropy tentacles comprising a lower half. All around them sprouted mutated, equally alien flora, ranging from brambled to globular to algal. Thronelike haloes flared across their forms, independent of any physical structure. Something about the shifting gleam suggested to 'Choly these parhelia represented some manner of sensory body.

His neighbors curtained their armillaries in an instant. His attention fell upon the Children's congregation throughout the Concourse. Amid a universal void of hearing, focusing on their mouths reminded him of their language barrier. The Children did not shy from these creatures, and instead began to move about in a slow dance around them. He clutched his armillary baubles but stopped short of concealing them.

"Seems I got my horrorshow after all," he uttered voicelessly.

So what if these things notice me? Like the roots from the green-red shift before, neither these creatures nor the plantlike things emanated the ultraviolet Berry aura as did the Children or other denizens. He couldn't fathom where these images could possibly have originated. Did this evince extraterrestrial life? Extradimensional life? Were they from Earth, older than fossil records, existing only within the granite which humans carved and set them free?[12, 13] It would have disappointed him more, that these things didn't appear real, if not for their sheer alien beauty held in the largest holotape playback he'd ever witnessed. His annotations persisted in a frenetic transcript of pencil and digital manipulation.

He acclimated to the resonance of the space, and could make out several local sounds. The Aurora chirped in the same way a bonfire crackled, distinct but lacking a concept of volume. The Children continued their hymn in round, oblivious to whether it was audible for some time. His respiration no longer echoed in his skull.

The Children's dance parted abruptly. Darryl sprinted about, quartering and panting in a fit of drool. See's surrounded the mutant, frantic to any possibility contact with the granitic projections would prove hazardous. Several had nets at the ready. One cast theirs, but Darryl loosed a volley of saliva which corroded it mid-air. He loosed several more sprays, and See's scattered. 'Choly squirmed back in his seat, titillated by the sight of Darryl's terror manifest but also terrified what that acid might do to glass… and then him. The Clark sisters' mastiff lunged to grab one of Daryl's biceps in his teeth, to facilitate See's finally netting Darryl with nonlethal force. Several guards escorted him back to Grey & Gould, while the rest sped after the freewheeling dog to detain it.

"You keep asking me what Darryl is." At Sticks's trembling voice, 'Choly looked over to the shirtless ghoul standing witness at the other window. His lone curled blond lock drifted in demonstration of its length. "I still don't know, but those things… They've got to be one, full grown."

"How long do you suppose this broadcast will last?"

"Broadcast? Whatever's going on, it's got to be because of the storm, right? Could be hours, days. We're at the whim of nature. They… they can't see us, right?"

"Not in any conventional sense." A smile tugged at him. "I'm sorry I dragged us here."

"Don't be. We got what we came for. Just, now we're paying for it in spades."

"...I've had my Melancholia."

"Forgive me if I'm not ready to get face-to-face." Sticks glanced over to him. "I'd think you'd be enjoying this."

'Choly's gaze returned to the Children, resuming their dance.

"Aren't I? I doubt anyone else is. Except the Children, of course. Bozhemoy, what are they doing."

"Ugh. Don't know. Don't fuckin' care." Sticks flapped his hands at the Aurora, and its witnesses. "I'm leaving you to your stories, couch tato. I can't handle looking directly at… whatever this is. Gonna try to go back to sleep. Emphasis on try. Christ."

'Choly took the interruption as an opportunity to freshen his nootropics and eugeroics. With a false familiarity, the chemist sat again and followed along with the Children with a soft murmur. He watched it all like a muted show lacking subtitles. If he couldn't trust the color to abide by the physics of light, what trust could he place in any of his other senses? Was anything he heard sound? Anything he smelled scent? He distrusted the entirety of the experience, somehow, especially his sense of time—would his trouble all along have been solved with a sensory organ which could more accurately measure time, sooner than approximate by a very human, crude assessment? Days from now, he could very well come to understand that none of this had transpired at all.

But, it would make for a very good story, wouldn't it? At least the Berries highlighted the players from the effects, but they did not circumvent the soundproofed glass, or bestow him with any scope of Perception acuity on par with Angel. Owing to the nigh-sacred geometry at play in this moment, Berries had been the correct choice, but there were dozens of flavors of Mentats. The notion of branching out at his next convenience delighted him. Grape had been easy enough. Orange would be easier still. And then, any of the variations in the MKExceed Papers… He smiled.

The historical storm carried the Children's throng deep into the night. As hours passed, fewer Children involved themselves directly in dancing with the Aurora's images, but they all gathered along the Concourse to bear witness, and feel the resonance of the granite at their backs. Many spread their palms against the brilliant surface, overlapping with their cousin's beside them to continue the circuit, and closed their eyes to let the vibrations enrapture them.

'Choly wondered whether their eyelids painted the same spectacle as their open eyes. He refused to shut his eyes a moment longer than the occasional blink.

The Lane crept awake, at some point seized by a hunger which outweighed their desire to sleep and ignore the storm conditions. The procession of ultraviolet plumes worked its way toward the Court. Many more than typical took their food back to their leases and rooms. He supposed the tin washers in the Court made an enormous sum during storm season. Denizens walked through the Aurora, unconcerned with its images, only in avoiding the path of Children still at play. He began to notice the same figures passing by on their way to the Court, often empty-handed. Had they lost their sense of direction or forgotten something in the magnetic fields, he could only speculate.

"Have you even slept yet?"

'Choly loosed a lilted breath.

"I don't… intend to." He glanced to his Pip-Boy. Just past eleven. "Really, I can't imagine how you've managed it. Just look at—"

Gunfire silenced all but the storm's static aria. Something pushed See's further and further Southbound. The guards' use of force drove the mall's denizens to take shelter, watching terrified that anything warranted the Lane's full military might. 'Choly watched an ant crawl up the bay window, and made note of it.

"Ants!" Sticks gnashed his teeth as the insects overwhelmed See's and began to drag them Southbound screaming. "How the fuck are they inside? The whole mall's sealed shut!"

Box the mastiff sprinted through again, barking and nipping at the ants. Every so often, he pried one off a guard, but even more would swarm up to take its place. He yelped when they swarmed him, and ran, dragging along a few attached, toward their source rather than their destination, like an ultraviolet coma scattering a dust tail of ant gore.

See's still on their feet cried out to the Lane announcing full lockdown. The guards attending GCD's entrance had dispersed, but neither Sticks nor 'Choly dared open the doors to hear the civil announcement. Leases and anchors alike flung their doors shut, but the ants still grabbed dozens more to drag away.

"You'd think they'd be trying to get into the Food Court," 'Choly questioned. "Why would they need to take lives? And drag them to an already sizable cache?"

The infrasound rumbling gave way to an even deeper one. Many rightfully feared the storm could rend the building asunder, and hid under the most secure installments of their leases. When 'Choly continued to sit despite any number of possible threats, Sticks grabbed him and threw him down behind the counter to hide with him. Gravity eventually let the scattered papers and his armillary baubles settle all over the floor.

Sticks slapped him.

"I know the storm's not the only thing that's got you sideways, but can you exercise even just a little self-preservation!?"

'Choly's mouth parted. The sound of shattering glass drowned any answer.

He stopped shielding his head, and sat up, ears attentive. He could hear the Aurora's rolling frequencies of chirps and squeals. The settling of glass floating and colliding contrasted the uniformity of the ice striking the building's exterior. Human sounds all but halted. Eyes wide, he stood, and at a caution, he approached the shattered bay window. Ants were crawling into his neighbors' broken windows to extract more people to drag toward the Court. He retrieved his cane from the floor beside his chair, and choked up on it, less like a walking aid. Grateful for the reinforced layering of his officer's gloves as he steadied himself on the broken pane, he leaned out the front window.

Outside the Food Court entrance, a sinkhole had fallen in. His head prickled hot, to see it had consumed the expanse of mismatched tiles. As ultraviolet plumes billowed up from the pit, he pulled himself back inside the lease as slowly as possible. Translucent, rootlike fibers suckered over the mouth of the pit before erupting in every direction. He scrambled back to hide behind the counter again.

He steadied his breathing, but couldn't stop staring at the ultraviolet aura emanating from even his own hands. He looked to his side, but found himself alone.

"Sticks?" he whispered, eyes wild. "Sticks!"

He crawled to the doorway to the back of the lease. The bathroom door and stockroom door were both wide open. His lungs burned as he sat in the floor outside the stockroom: the back door lay open as well. He had half a mind to flee, too, but the explosive growth of filament slammed the door shut as it subsumed even the utility hall at explosive speed.

He returned to his hiding place behind the counter. The bathroom abutted the hallway. He gripped his cane and watched the bay window from around the side of the counter. The Aurora didn't emanate the violet glow. Why did these tubificid, rapacious fibers?

He felt a pinch to his armpit, and brushed it off. It wasn't an ant, or a filament. It didn't matter.

The room warped around him. He swerved, to steady himself against the counter shelving with one shoulder. He wiped away the cold sweat pouring down his face. Again, his ears felt like he'd been trapped in a jar. His eyes followed all the room's nascent curves.

Vaguely, he made out Sticks's yells outside. He crawled closer, finding any meaningful straight line difficult. He stopped several feet from the window, praying the ultraviolet filaments would not notice him. He reared up on his knees to peer over the bottom of the broken window, out into the non-Euclidean Concourse.

Feverish, he squinted to pinpoint the location of the voice. Ants continued to drag bodies, dead and soon-to-be dead, to the pit. Glass shattered down the way, followed by a splash of fire. Two more such displays, and 'Choly could safely presume he would find he'd run out of mineral spirits, and had no more spare glass bottles. His mouth became a line. The filament screeched at a pitch just barely within the human hearing range. It shrank from the fire.

When the filament encroached on the window pane, he gagged out a yelp and scrambled backwards on his butt, to hide behind the counter. His heart thrashed in his chest and head, and he couldn't sit still enough to keep from tottering. Suddenly, every ounce of focus bottomed out into the desperation to stay lucid. The drift of the ultraviolet plumes and his inability to track his surroundings generated the sense of atavistic specters all about him.

He spilled forward onto his face. He kicked and righted himself face-up on the floor, only to find his assailant atop him. He pawed for his cane. A flash of pain sliced across his cheek, then several dull scrapes across his forearm and throat. Amid the suspicion the ants had found him, he could make out an ultraviolet aura and a faint mess of dense curly blonde hair. He managed to garrotte her with his cane. He snorted hard and squinted through the blur of sweat and aural plumes.

As he steadied his breaths, he found his left hand held a knife. He had not yet disarmed his attacker. His hand trembled in the understanding his cane's handle contained a dagger, and that he'd come this close to holding it to a little girl's throat. His hold firmed, even as she tried to stab him over her shoulder.

"Wanda," he heaved. "Wanda, where did that blood come from. The blood you sold me."

"They weren't going to use it anyway." She gagged and squirmed. "Just like you're not going to need yours much longer."

He sheathed his dagger to grab her wrist. He squeezed until she dropped her kitchen knife.

"The storm won't last much longer. I know things look grim, but attacking people isn't going to help."

"No. You've got to let me drag you to the hole." She slammed her bare heel into his right knee and he bawled. No longer restrained, she stood and started kicking at him. He shielded his face. "If you won't let me, go see it yourself."

He strafed her in the leg before she could grab either weapon. He could only pin her in a chokehold by wrapping his legs around hers in his lap. He threw the knife as hard as he could toward the window. He praised that he didn't hear it connect. He took a moment to steady himself again. They'd rolled around in the floor up to the dead center of the drugstore floor. He didn't want her to get free before he had an explanation, so they sat in the web of boreal caustics.

"Wh… what's in the hole?"

"Hunger."

"What's hungry…?"

"No. Hunger is in there."

A shape lurched outside. He clamped a hand over her mouth. The filaments coating the Concourse slumped in front of Sutter Grove, only to struggle to right itself again, resembling someone tangled up in fishnets. Unable to break free, whatever shape deliquesced time and again. The tall, amaranthine figure held long enough to appear to walk toward the GCD front door. 'Choly and Wanda froze. The figure tilted its head around the side of the broken window, to peer in at them. Its form shifted to intimate a leg raised for climbing, but it stopped mid-motion to once again deliquesce in near-inaudible screeching.

A Molotov cocktail spilled flaming oil across the front of the drugstore facade. The ultraviolet aura faded from all new growth in the Concourse, leaving only the coronas of its denizens. When 'Choly let go of Wanda, she fell limp in his arms. His heart heaved. Removing a glove, he confirmed a pulse. He wheezed in relief, only to remember the ants. His eyes still wouldn't wholly focus, but he could make out housecat-sized dark shapes outside. They seemed as out of sorts as the rest of the mall's inhabitants, not marching to the pit but walking there without instruction. The cinema continued on, either entirely unaware of the ants beneath it, or uncaring toward their fates.

"Mindy?" Sticks crouched to step through the broken window. "You still in one piece in here?"

"What was that about me having a sense of self-preservation?"

"Not enough people were doing anything about it." The ghoul glanced down. He'd donned the full soda jerk uniform, and slung on his oiled longshoreman's coat. He was covered in dark pungent smears, likely blood and insect guts. "You had your hands full, even without the ants and whatever— What the fuck even is that shit?"

"They're leafcutter ants. They farm fungus. I… I think that's some kind of fungus."

"You think?"

"Well, nothing I've ever known grew that quickly, or…"

'Choly couldn't form the description for the specter.

"You know you're bleeding, right?"

"Am I?" 'Choly could only loose a weak laugh as Sticks offered him a hand up.

Sticks scooped up Wanda, to follow 'Choly to the back end of the lease.

On his way to the bathroom, glass crunched under 'Choly's foot. He glanced down in the chroma from the living area, to identify that he'd stepped on a single empty Syringer dart.

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[0] Prisoner's Cinema: an optical phenomenon most commonly experienced by those kept in prolonged darkness, or exposed to Cherenkov radiation, wherein the individual "sees" lights which have no source. The experience is named after the initial observations in prisoners kept in dark cells.

[1] Sunflower bears dual association. It ties with the sun, wherein its flowers follow the daily path of the star through the sky. And it ties with radiation, wherein its roots purify exposed sites. The sun is fueled by nuclear fusion, so in a way, one in the same.

[2] "A Stable Lamp Is Lighted." A slightly higher than typical amount of Christian customs have got wefted into the tapestry of Hinter Children's observances, and this includes a handful of hymns. "Rock of Ages" is the most well known to outsiders, owing to their mecca in Vermont, but here they sing "A Stable Lamp" specifically for the ritualistic reverence of a Granitic Mass awakening anew. (Thank you, mydearzampano, for suggesting this hymn.)

[3] Allegory of the panopticon. Here, 'Choly feels empowered by his ability to bear witness, doubly so without witnesses. He's grappling for some mote of control amid an inevitably stressful experience: and he's habituated to annotating and measuring everything.

[4] Phosphenes: Optical effects resulting from various atypical stimulus applied to the eyes: pressure, radiation, chemicals, etc. Prisoner's Cinema is often described as phosphenes. (See also magnetophosphenes, phosphenes generated during exposure to magnetic fields.)

[5] Sigma radiation. The Stefan-Boltzmann constant asserts that the higher the level of energy in an object, the more radiation it emits. It explains, for example, why heated metal brightens. 'Choly's field of science doesn't dip into thermodynamics; here, he's just picked a Greek letter designation that he figures wasn't already in use, since it's so far down the alphabet. The capital variant of sigma is also used in mathematics to signify summation.

[6] Green and red chroma. Lacking the retinal structure for it, the human eye cannot perceive yellow. When we see yellow, it is our brains averaging red and green because they're the next most approximate interpretation. The human brain averages colors in many ways, including how we perceive pink. (See also Stygian and Impossible colors.)

[7] Mise en abyme: Art which contains a replica of itself, implicit of infinite recursion.

[8] Circling back to the comparison of the panopticon and the diorama, as per Anna Friedberg's "The Mobilized and Virtual Gaze in Modernity: Flâneur/Flâneuse," printed in Mirzoeff's Visual Culture Reader, p.261. (In the PDF of the text in the included link, Chapter 22 starts on p.270 of the file, and "The panopticon versus the diorama" is the last of the five pages. The whole chapter is reading-worthy.) Analytic parallels drawn between the panopticon and the diorama, via discussion of the way flânerie impacts behavior. The directionality of optics changes everything about its impact for both source and subject. https://analepsis.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/104915217-mirzoeff-nicholas-ed-the-visual-culture-reader.pdf

[9] 154. The Wire album, esp. "Map Ref 41°N 93°W." Imagery of cartography, and the interstices therein of metrics and actuality.

[10] Lissajous figures are parametric representations of mathematical knots, most often measured either with a pendulum or oscilloscope. See also Lemniscate of Gerono.

[11] Danielewski's House of Leaves. "... imagining performed by the human eye is neither active nor passive. The eye does not need to produce a signal to see nor does an object have to produce a signal in order to be seen. An object merely needs to be illuminated…. Unfortunately, humans lack the spotted neutral hardware present in bars and whales. The blind must rely on the feels light of fingertips and the official shape of a cracked shin. Echolocation comes down to the crude assessment of simple sound modulations, whether in the dull reply of a tapping cane or the low, eerie flutter in one simple word—perhaps your word—flung down empty hallways* long past midnight." *Always.

[12] Stone Tape theory, wherein the crystalline structure of stone can be imprinted with strong energies. It commonly refers to recorded emotional energies as an explanation for haunting as a phenomenon, why ghosts repeat behaviors, and how emotions and personalities become linked with a location.

[13] "I saw the angel in the marble, and carved until I set him free." — Michelangelo

[purkinje-effect]

Today, I finally finished up a lineup for the characters residing at Ant Lane, NH, during Manchester Impasse. I can at long last sear your retinas with the delicious impossible color of the Children of Atom’s armillary glass.

Some of them you’ve met, while the rest will show up very shortly. From left to right:

Sgt. Bea, Wanda and Euphinia “Phin” Clark with their Neapolitan mastiff Box, Kessler (a few years before she’s mayor of Bunker Hill)

Liam Bledsoe, Orqueida Cook, Darryl, Sacristan Haidinger

Hierosacristan Fresnel, Mayor May Knott, Verity Royce, Yancy Mercer

Angel, Alan “Melancholy” Carey (my Sole), “River” Sticks, and Maury

several leafcutter ants :)

You can find The Anatomy of Melancholy on AO3, if you like. It’s available here, too. Since Tumblr often hides posts with links, I’ll reblog to add those.

I appreciate all likes and reblogs! <3 Please do not repost, edit, or redistribute my art or fic without my permission.