Chapter Text
Isla gasped, sucking on icy air. Her lungs clenched from the pain of a hundred thousand microscopic knives. The world flexed before her burning eyes, sharpening into focus. The door of the pod -- the cryo pod, she now realized -- lifted with a pneumatic hiss. Her brain told her body to reach forward and balance herself, but her muscles tightened, cramping terribly, and her joints locked. Arms cut the white cryo smog as Isla’s body shuddered and fell forward.
“It’s alright, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
A familiar voice soothed her as Isla trembled, gasping. Her limbs spasmed involuntarily, and she was cold. So, so, cold. Steadier, warmer hands rubbed her back briskly.
“Jie,” Isla said, hoarse.
“That’s right, it’s me.”
Isla looked up into her sister’s face, finally. Evelyn was watching her, her brows drawn in concern and her lips pressed thin. She looked much as she had just moments ago, when they’d first crawled into what they’d thought were disinfecting pods. Her hair was still perfectly curled from her appointment at Minnie’s salon just yesterday. Or had it been days?
“We were frozen,” Isla said.
“Yes,” Evelyn answered, swallowing.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
Something in her tone made Isla look closer at Evelyn. She saw now bloodshot eyes, pinched cheeks.
“What is it?” Isla asked.
Evelyn looked down, her breath slowing deliberately.
Isla sat up properly. The room -- the metallic, underground chamber full of cold, steel chrysalises. Only two pods were open: the one she had just exited and one beside it, Evelyn’s. Nate and Shaun had been in the one across. The room was empty, silent. Just moments ago Vault-Tec scientists had been buzzing around, imparting reassurances while their neighbors, the other residents of Sanctuary Hills had clung to one another, crying or silent, horrified at the giant, richly-colored plume of radiation they’d just seen. The breath of death that had swept through their hair, shook the golden foliage of the trees. The room was silent.
“Nate,” Isla said. She struggled to her feet. “And Shaun. Why did you get me first? The baby -- there’s no telling what cryo does to a baby --”
Evelyn’s limp hands slid away from Isla as she stood. Isla stumbled to the pod across the aisle, wiping condensation from the glass. Nate was inside, his head slumped at an awkward angle. His dark skin was speckled with growing crystals of ice. His arms hung, limp and empty, and --
Isla gasped sharply, pulling back.
A hole. A black, burnt, and stippled hole was gaping directly on his forehead. And Shaun -- it was just moments ago, only moments -- Shaun was not in Nate’s arms.
“Evelyn, something’s happened,” Isla cried. “Something-- Nate, Shaun-- ”
She stared around, and seeing the controls for the pod, she lunged for them. Hands grabbed her wrists, wrenching her away.
“Don’t,” Evelyn said, low and growling. Her eyes burned into Isla’s. “Don’t touch it.”
Isla stared at where her sister’s hands gripped her wrists. Evelyn’s fine fingers, with carefully manicured nails, were trembling.
“Evelyn. I -- I think Nate’s been hurt. We need to help him--”
“There’s no helping him now,” Evelyn whispered.
“I don’t understand.”
And then Evelyn told her. Her sister told her how she’d woken, and watched as Nate was killed and Shaun was taken. How she had woken, alone, and opened Nate’s pod -- and how the terminal at the end of the hall told the terrible truth of Nate’s vitals, and how she’d closed the pod back, turned the cryo back on, and no one was to touch it.
Isla held her shaking hands to her face, felt tears there. Evelyn’s eyes were burned dry. She’d done her crying, and there would be no more; Isla could tell from the growing fury in her eyes.
“But why? And when?”
“I don’t know,” Evelyn said quietly. “But I’m going to find out.”
Isla grabbed her shoulders, looking into her face.
“We’ll find him. I’ll help you. We’ll find Shaun.”
Evelyn stared back. Her eyes were dark, her mouth hard. She inhaled sharply and stood.
“First, let’s get the others out of the pods. Then, we’ll figure out what the hell happened.”
Slowly, they manually overrode the pod controls, catching the inhabitants and letting them adjust as they thawed. Evelyn, as usual, took the lead. She knew the names of everyone, while Isla mostly recognized a face here and there. There was the high schooler and her parents, that Mr. Russell from up the street that Evelyn and Nate often muttered about. The young-ish guy who lived near the end of the street, and was always home in the middle of the day. Which Isla knew because she had also been home in the middle of the day.
Middle of the day during the week was so silent in Sanctuary Hills. Isla loved it. There were no prying eyes, no pressure to wear her face a certain way, no anxiety - or, less anxiety, anyways. Sometimes Isla would walk down to the Red Rocket station for a slushie or an ice cream, pushing along Shaun in his blue stroller, and she’d pass by the youngish guy’s house, his car constantly there, and loud jazz spilling from the windows.
But Evelyn knew the neighbors, called them by name as she helped them down from the pods, and helped them thaw their spouses or their children. She comforted those who were wrecked by the shadow of the plume. She told each neighbor about Nate and Shaun, asking them if they’d seen anything. Nobody had, but many were shocked to hear the tale. Nate and Evelyn were well-liked. Evelyn knew them all, because that’s who she was. Motivated, social, a leader. Chairwoman of the Sanctuary Hills HOA, vice-president of the local association of military wives, member of every welcome wagon, hostess to the neighborhood’s Tuesday bridge club. Successful lawyer on track for a junior partnership. A carefully maintained appearance. That was Evelyn, and Isla followed her lead.
Some of the pods were left alone, the terminals nearby declaring the people inside deceased. No one could find words when they saw this.
Eventually, they were all out of their pods and gathered in the overseer’s office. There was a tense moment when they all saw the gun on the desk. Evelyn quickly scooped it up, checking the chamber as Mr. Russell eyed her, chin jutted. The others were quiet. They all looked ridiculous. Skin-tight, luridly bright blue and yellow suits stretched over their soft, suburban bodies. It was their faces that showed how terrified they were. How long had they been frozen? What was above ground now? How much damage had the nukes done?
One of the bridge ladies’ husbands -- a Mr. Callahan -- was reading through the overseer’s logs, the instructions for the vault. The group was silent as they heard about the end of Vault 111’s caretakers.
“Well. At least we know it’s been more than 180 days. The terminal doesn’t have an internal clock?” a woman asked.
“There’s no out-going communications?”
“No,” Mr. Callahan said, tabbing through logs.
“Well over 180 days, I’d say,” Mr. Russell said, narrow-eyed. “Judging by the clean skeletons we saw.”
“And the giant roaches,” the high school girl -- Cindy Cofran -- said, grimacing. “There’s no telling how long it takes to mutate so large, even with all the radiation.”
Her mother -- brown-skinned and dark-haired like her daughter -- beside her shuddered, covering her mouth with a hand.
“There’s no way to get readings of the radiation levels outside?” Mr. Cofran asked.
Mr. Callahan shook his head, but Evelyn stepped forward, straightening and staring at them all.
“It has to be safe enough now,” she said. “The man who took Shaun wasn’t one of us, and definitely didn’t look like a Vault Tec employee. He had to be from outside.”
“Why would someone come down here just for a baby, though?” an overweight man likely in his late twenties asked, running his hands over his dark hair and his sweat-slicked forehead. “And if he did, did he contaminate the vault with radiation? What if--”
“I don’t care,” Evelyn snapped. “I’m getting Shaun back. He’s not down here, so I’m going up there.”
“Now hold up,” a woman, dark with short-cropped hair -- Mrs. Callahan -- said. “You don’t know any of that for sure. You can’t just open the door and endanger us all.”
Isla swallowed, her body stiffening. The people around her had become tense, and an undercurrent of fear and anger was washing through them. Voices were starting to rise. Isla clasped her hands, stilling them.
“We have to do something,” Ms. Rosa said. “You heard those logs. There’s no food down here. Unless you fancy hunting giant roaches.”
“Could be there’s nothing but roaches up there, too.”
“I hate to say,” Mr. Russell snorted loudly. “But I’m with her.” He waved vaguely at Evelyn. “It’s not sustainable to live down here.”
“But the All Clear to leave the vault never came--”
“Look,” Evelyn said in a clear and reaching volume. “Why don’t I go up there and take a look around? Everyone else can go towards the back, and seal off the front. If I don’t come back in twenty-four hours, you can assume the worst.”
Isla stared. “Evelyn.”
Evelyn shook her head. Their eyes met, and Isla understood; nothing would stop her from looking for her son, for the man that murdered Nate. Isla herself was terrified; Shaun was so small and vulnerable.
“I’m coming with you,” Isla stated. She stepped up to her sister’s side, trying to ignore all the eyes now turned on her. She looked down at her black leather boots, still shiny and new. “I said I’d help you find Shaun, so I’m coming with you.”
Evelyn’s hand squeezed Isla’s arm, a gesture of gratitude and reassurance.
“Now hold up,” Mr. Russell interjected, scowling. “Are you taking that pistol with you?”
“There’s no telling what’s up there.”
“It’s our only means of protection.”
“The Vault door is plenty protection,” Evelyn said, her dark upswept eyes turning hard. “And I’m the one with a missing baby.”
“You’re not the only one missing someone, lady,” Mr. Russell snapped.
No one had said anything, but they had all wondered where Mrs. Russell was. She hadn’t been amongst them, and there were a few empty pods.
Mr. Russell spat. “I’m going up, too.”
“I’m keeping the pistol,” Evelyn stated flatly.
“Fine by me,” Mr. Russell said.
“Hold up, none of the rest of us have agreed to this,” Mrs. Callahan said.
“Let’s take a vote,” Mr. Cofran said.
There were twelve of them, including Evelyn and Isla. Surprisingly few voted against letting them leave the vault. So Evelyn and Isla were soon at the gangway leading to the massive, circular vault door they had entered, panicked and wild-eyed. Now they stared at it in awe. Unbelievable to think such a monumental thing could ever be moved.
And then Evelyn pulled a Pip-Boy from a skeleton sprawled on the platform, glancing at Mr. Russell, daring him to say something. He snorted and ignored her. Evelyn went to the platform’s controls, pulling the interfacing line from the Pip-Boy. And then they were rising up in the vault’s elevator, and the hatch above them was winding open. Isla’s throat clenched in fear. She thought of all the stupid b-films about horrific monsters, deformed and driven mad by nuclear fallout set to a backdrop of melodramatic tin can music. She clenched Evelyn’s hand.
She was a little girl again, at Mama’s funereal, holding Jiejie in one hand, Baba in the other -- Ba. Ba had still been in Connecticut, what if -- But that thought would have to wait.
Sudden, white-hot light hit them, and they shied away, covering their eyes.
And they emerged into hell.
-
Isla watched Evelyn’s back as her sister walked down the road, leaving Sanctuary Hills. Over her vault suit, she was wearing the ragged, filthy coat they had found on the body of a man lying on the bridge into the subdivision. The pistol from the vault was on her hip along with the dead man’s strange, cobbled together weapon. Isla hoped this would be enough to protect her from whatever was in Concord.
Codsworth hovered at her side anxiously. Or as anxious as General Atomic’s finest steel and circuitry could be. Isla sighed, staring at the rust and dents on Codsworth’s body. She was being unfair. The poor Mr. Handy was just as devastated about Shaun and Nate as anyone. It was just--
It was just horrifying. To think that over two centuries had gone by in an icy cryo dream. A mere blink, and the world had morphed into this wasteland. This purgatory. Vegetation stilted, turned to sharpness and colorless edges. The hills were splotched an eerie greenish-gray that not even winter ever saw -- or at least, what winter had been. Who knows what winter looked like in this world.
“Shall we, Miss Isla?”
Isla turned back towards Sanctuary Hills. Codsworth rattled and hissed as he floated after her, up the hill. The subdivision was a ruin. Everything was collapsed, filthy. She walked a little faster, her eyes darting from one patch of shadow to another.
Mr. Russell had stalked off to his house as soon as they’d emerged, without a word. Evelyn and Isla had found Codsworth at what was left of the house, and heard the horrible truth. He had suggested looking in Concord, and Evelyn told Isla to go back to the vault to let everyone know that her Pip-Boy’s geiger counter said it was safe enough. Meanwhile, Evelyn would press on, try to find people. Codsworth would stay with Isla. Just in case.
Just in case. Isla stared around, wondering where Mr. Russell was lurking, dreading to see him. She hated him. She hated the way his eyes landed on her and her sister. On their moon faces, their upswept eyes, their soft noses. They were second generation Chinese-Americans. And he hated them for it. Him and that wife of his. But she was probably dead now. Her pod, empty. She hadn’t made it in time.
And no one had said anything, because, really, no one particularly liked the Russells. Their dogs, and their petty squabbles over block parties with loud music, and their own loud domestic disputes. Nate once got into it with Mr. Russell, in the middle of the street, not long after Isla came to Sanctuary Hills. Over Nate gathering “communist trash.”
Isla walked faster.
She reached the vault, her back straight and nerves set on edge from the dreadful silence of the world.
The vault swallowed her back up.
-
Isla kicked the ruined frame of Evelyn and Nate’s bed to the side. She bent, gathering handfuls of rotted wood and tossing them out of the way. The threadbare rug revealed, Isla knelt. Tugging on a corner, she pulled back the carpet and the padding underneath. The plywood subflooring framed a steel door -- Nate’s safe. It looked untouched, even after all this time.
Isla reached for the safe’s dial. Her sister and brother-in-law had given her the combination in case of emergencies. The lock disengaged with a click, and Isla swung the solid door open. Inside were the semi-automatics, still there.
She stared at them. Licking her lips, her hands hesitated over the safe’s opening. She should pick them up. At least one. The world was no longer safe. Truthfully, the world before hadn’t been all that safe, but now, who was going to protect her? Who was going to protect Evelyn and help find Shaun? There were no police, no military. No law. She should reach into that safe and take a gun.
Isla swallowed. Her hands were shaking. She pulled them back and held her arms to her chest.
She couldn’t do it.
She stared at the other items in the safe. A sheathed combat knife, some thick stacks of cash, yellow and faded documents, and a military grade two-way radio Nate had brought back from one tour. He’d stolen it, as a joke one night when he and his squad got drunk. Isla took the knife and tucked it into a boot. It was something, at least. Then she bent and grunted as she struggled to pull the hefty radio from the floor safe.
After struggling with it, she got it over the safe’s edge and shut the door, twirling the dial until the lock clicked. She tossed the carpet back, tugging it underneath the radio.
The rattle and hiss of Codsworth outside had a tempo change, had an added whirr.
“Good day to you! How can I help you, Mr…?”
“Shelby. Just Shelby’s alright.”
“Of course, sir! I’m afraid the missus isn’t in, but I’m sure her sister would be happy to receive you.”
A snort. “You alright, mate? Little low on the fuel maybe?”
“I assure you, sir, my last diagnostics was sparkling!”
“And how long ago was that, eh?”
Isla pulled the front door open, and it swung clumsily on one hinge. Codsworth was floating there were the petunias had once been, talking with the youngish guy from the bottom of the street. The one with the jazz. ‘Shelby’ apparently. His dark umber skin took on a not entirely attractive highlight from the weak green-yellow light of the late afternoon. And he spoke with an English accent, not quite like Codsworth’s but definitely not a cockney or a brogue. Isla hadn’t realized he wasn’t American.
“Hello,” the man said.
“Hello,” Isla said.
They blinked at each other. He ran a hand over his wiry hair, short and neat with an undercut. He cleared his throat.
“I’m Shelby. Got something I can call you other than Evelyn’s sister?”
He thumbed his nose, his mouth pulling up in a crooked smile.
She shifted. “It’s Isla.”
His hands went to pockets that didn’t exist on his vault suit, so he pulled them across his chest.
“They’re gathering up the street. Food, hopefully.”
She realized she was hungry. Isla nodded, and stepped out of the doorway, closing the broken door behind her. For all the good that was worth. She and Shelby walked up the street, dodging fallen trees and the huge cracks in the pavement. Codsworth floated along with them.
Shelby glanced at the robot. “Your Mr. Handy seems a bit off.”
“Codsworth,” Isla said. “He’s been alone for a long time.”
“Yeah,” Shelby said, watching his own feet walk up the broken road. “A long time.”
At the end of the cul-de-sac, by the large tree in the center of the circle, the rest of Vault 111’s survivors were gathered.
Mr. Russell had appeared again. The others stood in a circle around him, listening to him speak and looking at the couple of crates at his feet. As they got closer, Isla saw the crates were full of silvery cans.
“-last for so long,” Mr. Russell was saying. “We’ll need to start being self-sufficient. Now, I have some fortified seed. But that will take time. We should send groups out to see if there’s anything worth hunting out there.”
There were murmurs among the group.
The sallow, slightly overweight, young man coughed and spluttered a little.
“Do you mean -- I mean, hunting? Farming?”
“That a problem for you, DiPietro?” Mr. Russell asked, his flinty eyes dark.
Richard DiPietro looked around at them all. Shelby shaking his head at him. The other suburbanites in their awkward stances, the silence all around.
“Do we look like hunters? Like farmers? I’m a textbook writer. Them -- office workers. All of us, we’re just -- we’re just normal people.”
“Look around you,” Mr. Russell snapped. “You think you can just go down to the Super-Duper and feed your family? Just go get a job and buy what you need? Wake up. You want to survive? You got better ideas than me? Go ahead, tell us about them.”
DiPietro backed up a little, his eyes darting down.
“Who decided to elect you as leader?” said Mrs. Callahan. She stared at him, shoulders thrust back, arms held across her chest. She had certain angular planes to her face that made her black-eyed stare even more intimidating.
“We should probably wait until Evelyn gets back before we make anymore plans,” Mrs. Cofran said, raising her hands in a gesture of supplication.
“I agree,” said Ms. Rosa. Beside her, her thick-shouldered, bespeckled son picked uneasily at his vault suit.
Mr. Russell snorted and shook his head. Still, a fire was built and a dinner thrown together from the canned goods. It could almost have been a camping trip, if not for the matching blue suits and the deep exhaustion in their faces that reached much further than a night’s rest could fix. As darkness fell, they dispersed. Into the ruins of those buildings they had called homes.
Isla spent a restless night, fiddling with Nate’s radio to pass the time. There was nothing much there; mostly silence.
-
“Welcome to Sanctuary Hills,” Evelyn sighed, pushing her pack off her shoulders and letting it slide to the ground.
“Sanctuary,” Sturges said.
“What?” she squinted at him.
“Sign says ‘Sanctuary,’” Preston said, stepping up beside them.
It was true; time and negligence had worn away the ‘Hills.’
“Years and years this place has been called Sanctuary,” Mama Murphy added in her slow, wandering voice. Her feet had been just as slow and wandering, and Evelyn had had to restrain herself from just picking the little old lady up in her power armor and running with her. Although she suspected Mama Murphy’s behavior was more the effects of chem use than age.
The power armor. That had been an experience. Evelyn wondered how Nate had standed it; it was like walking around in an elephant’s body. She’d dropped it off at the deserted Red Rocket station and removed the fusion core; she had picked up at least that much on Nate’s stories.
Evelyn sighed. “Fine. Sanctuary.”
“Evelyn!”
She turned from her new acquaintances. Isla was walking quickly down the hill towards them, dark bags under her wide-set eyes. She had small features: small ears, a small mouth, a small nose. But there was a slight offset to her face. It wasn’t immediately noticeable, but the structure of her cheekbones and eye sockets slid unevenly, and the bridge of her nose had a crooked set. But, her high ponytail and her short bangs bobbing, Isla squeezed Evelyn in obvious relief.
“You’re back,” her sister said.
Evelyn patted her on the back. “I’m back. And I brought people.”
Isla released her, and Evelyn made a round of introductions. Dogmeat seemed to please Isla the most. He whined happily when she rubbed his ears. The rest of Vault 111’s survivors gathered in the street; they all looked a little haggard and sleep-deprived, but they also still looked healthy overall, with layers of fat and softness and lacking the pattern of bruises and cuts Evelyn had seen on those thugs in Concord. The raiders. And the leanness, both physical and spiritual, she saw in the Longs and the others.
Evelyn sighed and went about explaining to the Vault 111 survivors about her experience, what she had learned about the state of the world. They stirred, horrified. Evelyn should be horrified, too. She’d had to defend her life with lethal force. She’d killed people. But she was so tired and trying so hard just to keep going forward.
Supplies were divvied out. Evelyn had made sure to collect a great deal of clothes in Concord. The bright blue vault suits would not do. They marked them as soft vault dwellers. And a vault was a valuable resource. Who wouldn’t want a safe house built to endure a nuclear war?
Evelyn was surprised to hear that Russell had shared his supplies with the others. The man was a damn bigot, and had made her life hell with that cellar of his. It was against the Sanctuary Hills regulations, and as the HOA chairwoman it had been Evelyn’s wonderful task to ‘negotiate’ with him over it. Jackass.
Still, he’d fed everybody. And there were apparently plans to begin planting and hunting for food. It was clear he’d been prepared for this -- shocking exactly nobody. Evelyn disliked the man intensely, and she didn’t want him anywhere near Isla, but they would need him. Turns out one man’s crazy conspiracy-theorist-slash-prepper was another man’s leader in a nuclear disaster.
“Mrs. E.”
Evelyn turned around. Shelby. Almost thirty, English. His papers still said he was a RobCo employee, but she knew better.
“What is it, Shelby?” Evelyn asked, eyeing him.
He flicked his head away from the others. She pursed her lips, but nodded and followed him quietly. He led her to an out of the way patch of dirt shadowed by the wreck that had once been the Ables’ house. He cleared his throat, sticking his hands in his mock-colonial coat from the museum.
“Sorry to hear about Nate and baby,” Shelby sniffed.
“Thank you,” Evelyn said simply, a little clipped.
He chewed the inside of his cheek and squinted at her.
“So, ah, this Preston was telling me how there’s still towns. Cities and like. Probably nothing like before, but still.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Well, er,” he paused, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sure you’re aware I’m not really much of the nine to five type. I’m actually--” He smiled. “I’m actually in the business of happiness.”
“Happiness.”
“Yes. Or I was. Or I could be. Still.”
Evelyn pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her scavenged coat. Shelby’s eyes shot to them with undisguised hunger. She offered him one and a lighter. He lit it, and sighed with relief around a waft of smoke. Evelyn took a long drag herself as she looked at him.
“I’m a corporate lawyer, Shelby. Still, I had friends in the prosecutor’s office. And they had friends in the police department. So I was familiar with Officer McDermott. And I know he was familiar with you.”
Evelyn pointed at him with her cigarette.
Shelby smoked, his dark eyes motionless. He finally sighed.
“Alright. I’m a chem dealer. Made fucking bank, too. And look, I’m here now ‘cause I want to offer my services.”
She cocked a brow at him.
“If there are still cities out there, then there’s still a market. Maybe an even bigger one. I dealt more than I cooked, but I still got the recipes on my terminal. It’s all there still. And my station out back is usable. We got a lot of people to feed, and you think Russell’s survival shit’s gonna fly?”
Evelyn flicked her cigarette. “And you need someone to get you ingredients.”
“That world out there is dangerous,” he said. “And you seem pretty good with that pistol.”
She tapped a foot, thinking.
“Who do you deal to?” she asked.
“No kids, no cocksuckers. Elsewise, it’s just business. But I might need help on that front too. Two centuries sort of puts a strain on your contacts, yeah?”
Life had truly turned bizarre. She, an ivy-league grad and a respectable lawyer, wife, and mother, was considering becoming a drug dealer. But there were now seventeen people to care for. And with few means to do so.
“The profits are for everyone in Sanctuary,” Evelyn finally said.
Shelby hesitated.
“For everyone in Sanctuary,” she repeated.
“Alright, sure,” he sighed. “But I’m not fucking about in the woods, tally ho, tantivy, and all that.”
“I’m sure you’ll find something to occupy yourself. You have any stock piled up?”
“Gone. All gone,” he spat. “Probably more’n hundred thousand worth of product, all gone.”
Evelyn sighed. “Okay, give me a list, then. I’ll see what I can do.”
-
Isla switched the radio on. She quickly found the channel of ‘Diamond City’; a smattering of popular songs with strange commentary by a very nervous guy. She listened for a while and then switched to the channel with constant classical music, no commentary. Nothing new.
It had been almost two weeks since they’d left the vault. Evelyn left a few days ago. To help another settlement and to go find this Diamond City, for any information about Shaun. Isla had stayed behind; Evelyn had been unnerved by her encounters with raiders, and she felt it would be too dangerous to try to protect herself and Isla. So Isla stayed behind, and Evelyn took Dogmeat with her.
Isla sighed, idly turning the dial with little tick-tick-ticks. There was nothing. The world was empty. Silent. How small everything had become, and how large. The desecrated land billowed around them, overwhelming and terrifying. No more constant hum of the t.v. No more rumble of passing cars.
“- who might understand- ”
Isla jumped. Had she heard that? She had been clicking through the frequencies out of habit, hardly paying attention, and then a voice --
Isla swallowed. Her hand hovered by the dial. Her fingers touched it, nervous, trembling. She turned the dial back.
“- talking to the wind… Foolish, I suppose.”
She hadn’t misheard. That was a voice on the channel. Speaking Chinese.
Isla licked her lips. She scooted closer to the radio, picking up the transmitter. She tried to steady her breathing, unclench her throat so she wouldn’t squeak. Her thumb pressed the transmitter’s button.
“Hello?” Isla said.
Silence. The radio was silent for a long stretch. The moment weighed down her gullet, filled her with rattled nerves.
“Do you- you understand? ”
She jumped when the voice spoke again. Like watching a jack-in-the-box, rattling with its tinny tune, the building of internal pressure while you waited, waited, waited for the pop. And finally the pop that curled you up like a nervous cat.
“Hello?” said the radio.
“Yes,” Isla said, her voice strained to a high pitch. “Yes, I do. Um, but…”
She paused, and the voice did not crackle over the radio. It was a male voice, windy and a little like expensive paper that’s been rumpled, with creases and soft spots, reedy.
“But, do you- do you know English?” Isla asked.
“Yes,” said the radio, so politely. “If you would prefer.”
“Yes,” Isla said. She swallowed, her thumb pressed against the transmitter’s button. She let go after a pause, with nothing left to say.
“-sh is not very good. You will have to excuse me.”
Isla shifted. She had kept her transmitter on for too long, and the voice had begun speaking. The radio was two-way, but only one person could transmit at a time. She would have to release the button immediately after speaking from now on.
“No,” she said. “It’s fine. I’m sorry.”
“No apology needed,” said the radio quickly.
There was a long pause again. Who was this person? They had to be nearby, because the radio couldn’t have too long of a range. Couple of miles, tops. But who in the Commonwealth would know Chinese? In fact, the man on the other side sounded Chinese. It was his English that was a little heavy with accent. And there was something else. A bit of roughness in the voice. Like a sore throat.
Holding the transmitter close, Isla pressed the button. “Have you seen a baby? A child? Or a man--”
Isla described the man who took Shaun as Evelyn had described him to her. And how-
How Shaun might look, if he were older. Isla and Evelyn had discussed it, quietly. There was no telling how long ago that man broke into the vault. Two-hundred and ten years. Shaun could be a grown man by now. He could be dead.
Isla frowned. They had to keep hope up. She had to be strong for Evelyn. She had lost so much. For now, she would have to forget about the sound of Shaun’s cooing and the light in his little eyes. So Isla asked after Shaun and his kidnapper, but kept it vague. Anyone with a working radio could find their channel, and there was no point in inviting undue attention. The kidnapper might come back. And she did not know this voice over the radio. He could be anyone.
“No,” said the radio. “I have seen no child. No man like that.”
Isla’s thumb hovered over the transmitter’s button. She swallowed.
“I see,” she said.
Yet another long pause passed between Isla and the radio. “The radio” she kept calling this person. As if it was the machine she spoke to and not a living human being somewhere out there. In a way, it was a relief to know there were people out there. Beside the Longs, Mama Murphy, Sturges, and Preston. Yes, they said that there were others, but it was hard not to doubt when one looked out the window. This world was alien. It was uncanny, that this was Sanctuary Hills -- but a nightmare version, a sick joke.
The radio was silent, and Isla began to worry the person had gone.
“Are you still there?” she asked.
“Yes,” the person replied.
“Did you…” Isla stumbled, searching for words. “Why are you transmitting on the radio? Do you need something?”
“Need something?” the person repeated. “I… No. There is -- nothing.” Their voice took on a strange, self-deprecating lilt that couldn’t quite be called laughter.
“Oh,” Isla said.
“I will watch for these people you are looking for,” the radio quickly added. “Such as my-- ah, position allows.”
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“May I contact you on this frequency?”
Isla fiddled with a stray wrinkle in her shirt. “Yes, of course. If you need anything, please feel free to ask…”
The machine’s speakers crackled with a low chuckle. “It is not much. Ah, this… my watching. But thank you.”
They were quiet again. The evening had grown long, and the darkness was deep in this period before starlight could strain through the irradiated cloud cover.
“It is late,” the person on the radio said.
“Yes,” Isla said. “Um, then… Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
Isla put down the transmitter, looking at the radio. She stayed like that, kneeling in the dark, watching the silent machine, and she wondered if the other person was doing the same -- sitting in the residual quietude of that strange, awkward conversation.