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Glass Shortage (Charley's Story, Chapter 25)


gregaaz

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I tried hard to distract myself by working on the apartment and greenhouse for Winter's parents, but I couldn't shake a growing feeling of dread about what the future had in store for me. I knew I was probably being paranoid, but I found it unsettling that rumors about Sanctuary were already spreading. Combine that with the raiders we'd caught spying on us, and I was certain that spring of 2288 was going to come with serious challenges - not just challenges to our ongoing building plans, but direct challenges to our survival. 

 

Still, I apparently wasn't too distracted to do a good job on the house, because Winter was about ready to claim her parents' apartment for herself. The Workshop catalogue had a gardening section with kits for making an attached greenhouse, but the segments stood taller than the standard wall segments other kits used. I believe it was actually meant to be assembled at ground level and to come part way up an existing home's second story, but of course it was already too late to go with that approach, so instead I had to build up and put a cathedral ceiling on the second floor. In the process, I decided to go with an open floor plan, since it was going to be tough to get the interior walls installed right. 

 

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With everyone's housing complete, it was time to bring Stef and Fred down from the vault and then seal it up until we needed it again. I have to admit, I was a little worried that I was going to have problems at this point: if Stef and Fred decided they didn't want to come out to Sanctuary, then we'd be looking at the first real schism in the community - a much more real one than the "shirts versus skins" dispute we had when everyone first moved in. However, my fears turned out to be unjustified - the two of them had actually been feeling a little bit of cabin fever, and they were eager to join the rest of the group. 

 

The three of us packed up the storage containers from the vault's Workshop and brought everything down to Sanctuary. After we finished unloading, I gave the elder Ainsleighs a tour of their apartment and greenhouse. Fred was a bit inscrutable, keeping his feelings close to his chest, but Stef loved it. Evidently, in making good on my promise to give her a good home, I'd put to rest any lingering doubts she'd been harboring about my plans. I didn't quick talk her out of her dress, but I was nevertheless happy with the results. Almost immediately, though, Stef had an issue: she needed more greenhouse space, and she needed a dark space to transfer the mushroom farms.

 

Those were the kind of "Stef issues" I was happy to deal with, though I could see from the start that it was going to be a bit of a challenge. While bringing in the reserves from the vault had kept us from running out of a few key materials, we were still running low on glass - important for any greenhouse construction we wanted to do. Fortunately, just as we were finishing up leveling the ground that had previously contained the melon patch to make a dirt foundation for the mushroom shack and the second greenhouse, Trashcan Carla rolled into town.

 

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Everyone took a break to look through her wares, and while that happened Scout and I cornered Carla to talk security. I already knew she had an safe conduct agreement with the raiders in the area, and I hoped she could give me a more realistic sense of what we had to face.

 

"In particular," I asked, "I keep hearing that rumors are circulating about this place. How much to the local folks... and the local raiders actually know about what we're doing here?"

 

Carla shrugged that off. "Probably more than you'd like, but less than I'd really call dangerous. Every now and then I hear talk about vault dwellers starting a town in this general area. Most of the rumors seem to focus on how you're degenerates and perverts, I'm afraid to say."

 

I thought about that for a second, then shook my head, "I'd rather they clutch their pearls about our lifestyle than get excited thinking we're not properly defended."

 

"Maybe," Carla said, "but the other side of the coin's that all that moral outrage is keeping people away. Well, that and Vault 81 isn't helping any."

 

I remembered that prisoner I rescued saying he was from Vault 81... and I asked him to put in a good word with his Overseer. "What's the problem with Vault 81?"

 

"Well, the short version is that they don't think you exist. They're telling everyone who listens that the rumors about Vault 111 are just that: rumors. It kind of dampens folks' motivation to search you out when the local authority on vaults says you aren't real."

 

"Hmm," I mumbled as I digested that. "I'm not sure if that makes me happy or sad. Thanks, Carla, I need to think on this for a while. But for now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a building to finish putting up."

 

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In the end, our shortage of glass got the better of us, and we had to suspend our work on the greenhouse. However, we did get the mushroom shack completed, and on Stef's recommendation we filled it up with the brain fungus we'd been cultivating in the vault. I asked her why we weren't transplanting the slender, glowing ones, and she explained that not only did those put off more rads, they were also fragile and probably wouldn't survive the transplantation. With the fungus house built, combined with the crops we'd be growing in Stef's private greenhouse, I was confident we had enough to feed everyone. But still, I wanted surplus - not just to play things safe but also to prepare us for expanding the community.

 

After talking things through with the rest of our community, I decided to suit up and head back to Cambridge Polymer Labs. I'd seen lots of glass objects there that I could recover and feed into the Workshop - and at the same time, a trip there would fulfill a request that Tracey and the Donahues had made: recover a decontamination system. Even if it was just in parts, Tracey was confident she could rebuild it with some help from the Workshop. They explained that if I was serious about offering decontaminated personal effects as a way to enforce the dress code on visitors, I'd need a real pre-war decontamination system; simple washing wouldn't be enough. The allure of old world technology was going to be an important draw for our settlement, and having a working decontamination system would improve everyone's quality of life while also moving us towards that goal.

 

Once I was properly equipped, I passed through the settlement's gates and waved to Holly up in the watchtower. 

 

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Equipped with the power suit and armed with good knowledge of the facility's layout, I knew I was taking much less of a risk on this return visit. Still, I played things safe, using the same route as before to avoid potentially problematic settlements and opting for stealth whenever I could. That stealthy approach paid off, because as I worked my way down the back roads towards Cambridge, I spied a structure I hadn't seen before - a ramshackle two-story building that looked like part hideout, part hunting blind. And the crucified, still-moving human form in front of it proclaimed that nothing good was happening there.

 

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There were two raiders in the shack. One was standing watch on the upper level, but her back was to me. The other one was snoozing on a filthy mattress on the lower level. Triggering the biofuel foam, I dashed forward into the lower level and fired into the sleeping man at close range. Even as the watchstander's surprised shouts slurred through my time-slowed ears, I was dashing up the stairs to her perch, just in time to see her spinning to face me. Unfortunately for her, the influence of the biofuel had made my reflexes far faster than her own, and I blasted her head to bloody chunks before she could pull the trigger.

 

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After a quick check to ensure the site was secure, I took stock of the prisoners. One of them was dead, roughly impaled on a steel spike. That was probably, I surmised, the fate that also awaited the other two. A man and a woman were tied to crosses, and I had my doubts that they would have lasted to morning - assuming the raiders didn't give them the same treatment as the impaled woman to speed things along. I cut each of them down from the crosses and shooed them into the lower level of the shack to take stock of them.

 

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The woman hesitated, explaining to me that she'd rather not go back into the raider lair. I considered insisting, but at length I let her do as she wanted. In the meanwhile, I checked the man for further injuries and then questioned him briefly about what had happened. He explained that the three of them had been on their way to try to scavenge some water pump parts from Sunshine Tidings Farm, a ways to the west. The raiders had got them by surprise and taken them back to their camp - which he confirmed was new. He'd been hearing rumors that some raiders were getting driven east and south by a new group northwest of Concord, and he surmised this must have been one of those groups. 

 

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I wasn't able to draw much more information out of him, but I was able to confirm at least that he didn't seem to have any lasting injuries. After we spoke a little longer, I led him back outside and then I asked both him and his female companion what their plans were from here. The truth was, they had no idea. The three of them had been scraping by mostly because they had gotten an old water purifier working, but when it failed their position had ceased being tenable. Seth, the man, supposed they could go back to Diamond City and try their luck there, but it was more a guess than a plan.

 

I questioned them a bit further about this and I learned that in the course of keeping that purifier running as long as they did, they'd developed some specialized skills that would be hard to get. Silently, I had to acknowledge that if they went to Diamond City they'd probably actually do just fine, but I thought about the pump station I'd come across on the east shore of Sanctuary's lake, and I questioned them a little further. If I could fabricate parts for them, and if I could provide a skilled mechanic to work with them, could they rebuild their water purifier? Was it portable enough that they could move it?

 

We chatted a bit longer and it quickly became apparent that the answer to all those questions was "yes." And so I made them the offer: come to Sanctuary, bring the remains of their water purifier, and work with Tracey to fix it. Success or failure, I'd welcome them to the community either way. Seth and Lila talked amongst themselves for a while before agreeing. I gave them the abbreviated version of first day instructions: approach from the Old North Bridge, ask to speak to Winter. She'd provide them with clean clothes and connect them with the resources they'd need. I'd return a few days later and check in on them once I finish my mission.

 

And just like that, my community grew by another two members - I hoped. I looked forward to getting properly introduced and learning more about then, but that would have to wait until my return. It was already getting dark, and I decided to hole up in the raider camp until first light. Morning came wreathed in fog, a fortunate event that made it that much easier to sneak my way into Cambridge. Still, as the hours marched on and the fog burned off, I saw some concerning signs in town. Or rather, first I heard and then I saw. What I heard was the distinct pew-pew of laser weapons from deeper inside the city. What I saw was a radio tower that I was almost certain hadn't been therebefore, and an flag. It had the 13 red and white stripes of the American flag, but instead of the blue canton with the stars of the Commonwealths, it had a prominent coat of arms with a sword, gears, and wings motif. 

 

Of course, you all know that I was seeing the first signs of the Brotherhood of Steel scouting the Commonwealth, but to me it was an alien design. If anything, it smelled a bit of communism with that big red badge and the gears on the emblem, but for the moment I decided to just steer well clear of it. I mentally added downtown Cambridge to my list of places that weren't safe to go, and pushed on to the lab.

 

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Inside, everything was silent. Though I didn't completely let down my guard, I also didn't creep excessively as I worked my way through the above-ground portions of the facility collecting any glass goods that I thought the Workshop could convert into raw materials. Other than a decent haul of empty bottles in the break room, those upper levels didn't yield much of what I needed. However, I knew that the real treasure trove of glass goods would be downstairs in the lab.

 

Before I could head there, however, I took a moment to carefully follow Tracey's instructions and dismantle the critical components of the decontamination system. While the glass was important, this was the real prize for this expedition, and if I screwed it up then we'd be setting back our plans for a 'cleaning room' for visitors back by... I didn't know. Months? Years? Technology like this was hard to find, and even harder to find in working condition. Fortunately, everything went smoothly and I succeeded in finding and removing the critical components from each piece of machinery. 

 

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My memory had served me well, and the underground part of the lab was positively bursting with high quality glass of all sorts - test tubes, beakers, flasks, to say nothing of instruments like microscopes that likely contained all sorts of components for the Workshop to extract. I collected as much as I could carry comfortably in my pack, then started making my way back to Sanctuary.

 

I had good timing - Seth and Lila were just approaching the gate when I arrived back in town. I waved them down and greeted them again.

 

"You two have great timing," I said. "I was going to have Winter get you all set up, but it looks like I get to handle your intake myself. Come on, follow me and help me unload all this scrap. Then I'll get your uniforms made up. You're going to love it here."

 

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Edited by gregaaz

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