It was fully dark.
Jace leaned against the broken wall on the first floor of the Workhouse, staring at the Museum of Freedom in the distance.
The moon had not risen yet.
Unlike the game, where every night was lit by a bright moon, the wasteland had no electric lights.
The whole town was black, as if it had sunk to the bottom of the sea.
He raised his left hand and glanced at the Pip-Boy.
8:17 p.m.
He had waited more than four hours.
“Let’s go,” he whispered.
Codsworth followed silently behind him.
The two of them kept close to the walls, feeling their way toward the museum one step at a time.
During the day, he could avoid the broken bricks and trash underfoot.
Now he had to rely entirely on touch, and every step might make a sound.
Jace would take three steps, stop for two, and listen hard for any movement around him.
Only the wind.
After crossing two streets, the dark outline of the Museum of Freedom grew closer.
The three colored flags were no longer visible.
Only a few rusty iron poles remained, creaking in the wind.
Jace stopped behind a low wall on the side of the museum.
The main entrance was less than twenty meters away.
He listened.
Nothing.
Not the kind of quiet that meant “no movement.” It was real, complete silence.
No footsteps, no voices, no clink of bottles.
But there was light behind that door.
It was dim, faint, but definitely there.
Thin streaks of warm yellow light seeped through the crack in the door and fell across the steps outside.
Jace frowned.
He gestured to Codsworth.
Man and machine hugged the wall and circled into the shadows beside the museum’s main entrance.
The door was closed, but not locked.
A narrow gap remained between the two wooden doors, and the light was leaking through it.
Jace pressed his ear to the gap.
Silence.
He held his breath as low as he could and listened carefully.
There was a sound.
Very soft.
Very far away.
Not footsteps.
It was…
snoring?
Jace paused.
He activated the Pip-Boy’s life-detection function.
The screen flashed and displayed:
Third Floor: Two stationary life forms
Asleep.
Jace took half a step back and pulled the thumb-sized shard of mirror from his pocket.
He pressed it against the crack and slowly eased it inside.
The angle had to be right.
No reflection, and it could not touch the door.
The image in the mirror emerged little by little.
The lobby.
There was light.
Only one wall lamp was still working, its glow dim and yellow, but enough to make out this part of the lobby.
Empty.
No one there.
He shifted the mirror slightly upward.
No one was on the second floor pointing a gun at the front door like in the game.
Jace drew the mirror back and shook his head at Codsworth.
No one on the first floor.
He reached out and gently pushed the door.
It did not move.
He applied a little more force.
Still nothing.
Jace paused.
The door was not locked, but it would not open.
Was it bolted from the inside?
Or was something blocking it?
He leaned close to the crack and looked inside.
The wall lamp was too dim to reach the threshold.
He slipped the mirror back in and angled it downward.
Behind the threshold lay a wooden stick.
A thick one, like the leg of some piece of furniture, with both ends wedged into the gaps beside the doorframe.
A door bar.
Put in place from the inside.
Jace stared at the stick for a few seconds, then slowly pulled the mirror back.
Two Raiders who knew to bar the door before going to sleep.
They were not idiots.
But that was all.
He gestured to Codsworth, and the two of them retreated behind the low wall.
“What do you think?” Codsworth asked in a low voice.
“The door’s barred from the inside.
We need to get it open somehow.”
Codsworth was silent for a second.
“Then wait for them to come out?”
Jace shook his head.
“They’re not planning to come out.
The fire barrel isn’t lit, the door’s barred, and they’re snoring loud enough to shake the walls.
No one’s coming downstairs tonight.”
He looked up at the museum’s second-floor windows, where faint light showed through.
“We go straight in.
Open the door, as quietly as possible.”
He crouched down, pressed the mirror to the crack again, and angled it downward.
The wooden stick lay across the threshold, one end jammed into a gap on the left, the other into a gap on the right.
It was not especially thick, but it was solid.
He tested the gap between the door and the floor.
Less than a centimeter, just enough to fit a blade through.
He drew a dagger from his waist and slowly slid it in along the floor.
The tip touched the wooden stick.
He pried outward.
The stick shifted, but did not roll away.
It was wedged too tightly.
Jace changed the angle, slipped the blade under the stick, and lifted.
The stick rose a little.
He braced the door with his other hand and slowly added force.
The wooden stick rose higher and higher until it finally came free from the gap in the wall.
Thud.
A very soft sound.
The stick rolled aside and bumped against the threshold.
Jace froze.
He listened for movement upstairs.
The snoring did not stop.
Jace slowly let out a breath.
He put the dagger away and pushed the door.
It opened silently.
The hinges had not been oiled, but they did not let out an ear-piercing squeal either.
Maybe the wood had dried out with age, leaving it quiet instead.
The door opened a crack.
Jace slipped the mirror inside and checked again.
No one.
He pulled the mirror back and squeezed sideways through the door.
Codsworth followed in without a sound.
The two of them pressed themselves against the wall and stood in the shadows of the entryway.
The wall lamp’s light was a dull yellow and did not reach their hiding place.
Snoring drifted down from upstairs, one deep, one thin, rising and falling in turn.
Jace scanned the lobby.
Directly ahead was an iron gate, rusty and covered in grime, with a large padlock hanging from it.
Locked.
He remembered the layout from the game.
Behind the iron gate was the rear half of the museum, but that path was blocked.
They could only go right.
He pointed Codsworth toward the entrance on the right.
The two of them crept along the wall into the first exhibition hall.
The hall lights were off.
Only the faint glow from the entryway leaked in.
By that little bit of light, Jace saw them.
Several red human figures stood behind the display platforms.
Mannequins.
Models of British soldiers in red uniforms, wearing black tricorn hats and holding old muskets.
Two hundred years of dust covered them from head to toe.
Some of their faces had caved in on one side, exposing the fiberglass underneath.
The colonial-era British army.
Jace slowly exhaled and circled around them.
Codsworth followed behind him.
They crossed the exhibition hall and exited on the left.
To the left was a nuclear generator that could hold a fusion core.
To the right were the stairs.
Jace stepped onto the staircase and climbed one step at a time.
The second-floor corridor was a little brighter than the first floor.
Not because of the lights.
The overhead lights had gone out long ago.
Light was spilling from a room at the end of the corridor, pale and cold, casting patches of brightness across the floor.
Jace slowed down and edged along the wall.
The room’s door was open, and the light was coming from inside.
He stopped by the doorway and glanced in.
A huge mural covered the wall.
It stretched from the floor all the way to the ceiling, taking up the entire wall.
But only after he got closer did he realize it was not one painting.
It was three.
Jace stepped into the room and slowly looked from left to right.
The first painting showed a battlefield choked with gun smoke, colonial militiamen raising hunting rifles.
Lexington and Concord, where the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired.
The second showed gray warships, the flag raised on Iwo Jima, and U.S.
soldiers charging through a hail of bullets.
The third showed a barren moon, an astronaut holding a gun, and a soldier in Power Armor standing nearby with a minigun.
A plaque below the mural read: “This mural commemorates the heroic sacrifices of countless men and women of the U.S.
military.
From Lexington and Concord to the shores of Iwo Jima, from the Pacific Ocean to the Anchorage front line, countless fellow Americans fought to the death to defend the freedom of the American people.
Their sacrifice reminds us always: freedom is a right granted to all, but it is also the result of the struggle of a few martyrs.”
Jace stared at the mural.
Something seemed to catch in his mind.
The Battle of Anchorage.
China’s invasion of Alaska.
This was “history” in the Fallout universe, a ten-year war that finally ended with nuclear fire.
He had read about it in the game.
He had seen it in the Pip-Boy’s files.
But that was backstory, setting, something that had “happened in a fictional world.”
Now it was painted here, placed alongside the Revolutionary War and World War II.
Jace stood before the mural in silence for several seconds.
The Power Armor soldier in the painting struck almost the same pose as the colonial militiaman beside him.
“Pre-War Americans,” Codsworth said from behind him, “liked hanging every war on the wall.
The Revolutionary War, World War II, and…”
It paused.
“And that one.”
Jace said nothing.
He looked away and walked toward the stairs at the far end of the room.
The third floor.
As soon as he turned at the stairwell, the light grew noticeably brighter.
The corridor lights were on.
Not wall lamps, but long fluorescent tubes.
Several still worked, bathing the entire hallway in a deathly white glow.
Paint peeled from the walls, exposing the brick underneath.
Empty liquor bottles and cigarette butts were scattered across the floor.
At the end of the corridor was a wooden door.
Above it, a red sign glowed: EXIT, giving off a dim crimson light.
Jace raised his hand and checked the Pip-Boy.
Ahead: two large life forms
He gestured to Codsworth, and the two of them pressed against the wall as they approached the door.
It was ajar.
Jace held the mirror to the crack and looked inside.
A torn sofa.
A camp bed.
Empty bottles covered the floor, and the sour stench of cheap beer was strong enough to smell through the gap.
On the bed to the left lay the Raider who had been sitting there during the day, face up, mouth open, snoring loudly enough to shake the room.
On the sofa to the right was the one who had been lying in the chair earlier.
Two people.
Dead asleep.
Jace stared at them, his hand resting on the grip of his gun.
Then he remembered the diary.
“The boss cut off her head and took the necklace from her neck…”
He thought of the woman who had fought back on the farm.
He thought of what these people had done.
Jace’s hand moved away from the gun.
He drew the dagger from his waist.
Then he pushed the door open and walked inside.
Codsworth stopped at the doorway and did not move.
Jace walked to the bed on the left.
The Raider was still asleep, mouth hanging wide, his snoring as heavy as rolling thunder.
The scar on his face had been clear even from the balcony during the day.
Up close, it looked even uglier, even more vicious.
Jace raised the dagger.
He hesitated.
Just then, Codsworth drifted softly to his side and raised the circular saw beneath his body, silently signaling that it could do it.
Jace glanced at it, but the notebook left by the Raiders flashed through his mind.
He thought of the farm woman who had risen up and fought back.
He wondered what her eyes had looked like in her final moments, and whether she, too, had been staring into a face as hateful as this one.
He shook his head lightly and raised a hand, signaling Codsworth to move back.
The dagger came down.
Pff.
The Raider’s body jerked hard, then went limp.
The thunderous snoring stopped at once.
Jace pulled out the dagger and turned toward the bed on the right.
The other Raider was still asleep, completely unaware.
He circled to the side of the bed and looked down at that face.
The man’s eyelid suddenly twitched.
Jace did not wait.
The dagger swept across his throat.
Blood sprayed across the wall and splattered onto the back of Jace’s hand.
The Raider twitched a few times, then stopped moving.
Jace stood where he was, gripping the dagger, watching the two bodies gradually go cold.
Blood was still dripping down, mixing with the cheap beer in the empty bottles on the floor, giving off a sharp, foul smell.
Beside him, Codsworth remained silent.
Jace looked down at his hand.
Warm blood ran between his fingers.
He tightened his grip on the dagger, then slowly loosened it.
“Go to hell.”
His voice was terribly hoarse.
The Pip-Boy on his wrist suddenly vibrated.
The screen lit up, and a line of text appeared against the amber background: New Available Perk Points: 1
Jace was silent for two seconds, then opened the perk list.
Strength, Perception, Intelligence, Agility.
Those names appeared before him again.
He scrolled down, his finger hovering over the screen.
Which one?
He did not know.
Jace wiped the blood from the dagger on the Raider’s clothes, then sheathed it at his waist.
He did not look at the two bodies again.
He crossed the room and reached the corridor on the other side.
The fluorescent lights still glowed a ghastly white.
He quickly walked through the third-floor corridor and arrived at the room marked by the final EXIT sign.
The door was unlocked.
Jace pushed it, and the rusted hinges let out a harsh squeal.
Cool night wind poured in.
He squeezed out sideways and stood on the roof.
The moon had come out at some point.
Its light was faint, a thin layer of silver that barely outlined the rooftop.
To his left, a crashed Vertibird lay tilted on its side.
The cockpit glass had been completely shattered.
Both rotors were snapped, crookedly pointing toward the sky.
Jace walked over and looked inside.
A gray set of Power Armor stood beside the helicopter.
It was dull, dusty, and looked as if it had endured two hundred years of wind and sun right here.
Rust marked its surface, along with a few scratches, but overall it was intact.
A minigun was mounted on the aircraft beside it.
Jace stared at the suit for two seconds.
When he got this Power Armor in the game, he had never really thought about what it looked like.
One click on the screen, and he was wearing it.
But now it was real.
Half a ton of metal, standing there like a silent statue.
Jace pulled the core he had dug out from beneath the Red Rocket out of his backpack and held it in his hand.
Cold.
Heavy.
He walked behind the armor and found the slot.
He pushed the core in.
It clicked into place.
The armor’s eyes lit up.
Jace took a deep breath and turned the back release wheel on the Power Armor.
The armor plates on its back and limbs opened backward, like a metal beast waiting for prey to fall inside.
He adjusted his posture, slid his legs in, then his arms.
The armor plates closed automatically, sealing him inside.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Each armor plate locked into place.
Jace stood inside it.
Then the yellow HUD suddenly lit up.
On the left was the Power Armor status.
In the lower left was his current Health status.
Below it was an electronic compass that shifted as he turned his head.
He raised his hand.
The mechanical arm rose with him, much lighter than he had imagined.
Jace took a step forward.
Half a ton of metal, and yet he barely felt it when he moved.
The T-45 was the first Power Armor officially deployed in the Fallout universe.
In 2066, under the pressure of the Battle of Alaska, it had been hastily militarized from an industrial powered exoskeleton.
It was rougher than later models, with insufficient radiation protection, exposed tubing, a tendency to overheat, and even the risk of radiation leaks.
But it was also more brutal.
Its Carry Weight and lifting capacity were top-tier.
It was also more straightforward: parts could be found all over the Wasteland, and any power armor repair station could fix it.
Whatever past it had no longer mattered.
After two hundred years of dead silence, it had finally come back to life.
Now it had awakened once more, with a new owner, a new mission, and a new battlefield ahead.