A Rude Awakening
Still exploring the bleak Capital Wasteland, Tycho ventured into the concrete canyon that was once the heart of the city. The east coast of America was almost completely obliterated by the war. Tycho wondered if the rest of former America looked like this. He wandered further into the mass of rubble and broken buildings until he came to stop in front of and oddly intact facade. Adjusting his rad-filter mask, he tried the door-locked. Looking around to see if he was alone, he took a step back and drove his foot into the door, breaking it off its hinges. He pointed his shotgun around the interior, looking for hostiles-none to be found.
Gathering his bearings, he appeared to be in an office building of sorts that belonged to someone named Harland. The name was everywhere; doors, desks, old computers, an empty picture frame on the far wall had a gilded plate at the bottom with the name Peter Harland. Walking down a hallway flanked by office doors, Tycho reached a pair of heavy metal doors. Examining the buttons on the wall next them, this must be an elevator. He punched the DOWN arrow-nothing. Setting his shotgun down, he unsheathed his Bowie knife and wedged it in the small gap between the doors. With some effort, he pried the doors open wide enough to get his hands in and push them apart. Peering up the shaft, he saw that the car must be below him. Sheathing his knife and shotgun, he grabbed the chains next to the car cable and began to let himself down, hand under hand until he set his feet on top of the car. Lifting open the escape hatch, he dropped into the plush interior complete with brass fixtures, mirrors, and wood walls; This Harland guy had some money if this is what the elevators looked like. Prying open another set of doors, Tycho found himself in a bunker.
Generators, food and medicine lined the walls. Several thick cables snaked from various tanks and machines towards a steel coffin at the far end of the room. Tycho didn’t know what the substances in the tanks were but he recognized a breathing mask symbol when he saw one and tightened his. As he approached the coffin, an electric hum coursed through the bunker and a monitor next to the coffin lit up with readouts, a pulsating line and the outline of a body. Tycho squinted at the display, ignoring most of the numbers and lines and traced his finger across the name on the screen: Harland, Penelope. Taking a step back, the coffin hissed as locking seals were released, and the top slid down into a recess in the floor, exposing the contents of the container; there, behind a pane of Plexiglas, a small girl slumbered, most of her face obscured by a respirator. She looked too young to be a Mrs. Harland so Tycho deduced this was Peter Harland’s daughter. Touching his fingertips to the clear case, a female voice chimed, “Environment assessment complete. Radiation levels: nominal. Begin process” Tycho made a move for his pistol when a klaxon sounded and white clouds of…something was expelled from the coffin. The Plexiglas pane opened and restraints were released from the girl’s wrists and ankles. Still apparently asleep, the girl leaned forward and began to fall. Tycho slid under her and caught her, cradling her small frame like one would a doll. The fog having cleared, Tycho removed the girl’s respirator and went to remove his own but she began to stir-small movements, like a newborn from the womb. Her eyes fluttered halfway open and he attempted to get her attention,
“Miss Harl-…P-…Penelope?”