Chapter 135: Chapter 131

Jon Callen let out a weary sigh as he made his way through the ruins of Manhattan. The Sentinels were still up north leveling the Bronx, so for now he got to enjoy a walk through the remains of a dead city. The skyline was devoid of anything over a dozen floors, the skyscrapers of old having been felled by nuclear explosions or the harsh passage of time.

Even the Empire State Building he passed by earlier was violently shorn off to just a few rubble-filled storeys.

 

Even Lady Liberty and most of the island she was housed on was missing, the monument clearly being directly targeted by a tactical nuke. The absent landmark hit Jon the deepest as he flew in and the memories of a pre-war, pre-ghoul life swarmed him. It didn’t feel good at all walking through the corpse of New York City, but he had to do it for his old memories’ sake.

 

There was very little left to remember, for what it’s worth. According to reports, the nuke detonating right above Central Park was the reason why most of it and the surrounding blocks were now a massive black crater that divided Manhattan in two. The locals had called it the Dead Zone, and pre-Nexus the entire area was lousy with oversized, mutated rat tribes.

 

Tribes. Of rats.

 

Because of course the rats of New York would be radiated enough to gain sentience and form tribes. It was almost a pity that the Nexus’ robots cleaned the place out so thoroughly, Jon was mildly piqued enough to want to meet one of those bipedal rats.

 

Most of the buildings he had encountered in his hike were heaps of rubble riddled with holes dug out by some wasteland creature or another. The blocks closest to the obliterated Central Park especially became a hilly range of concrete and steel. 

 

For better or worse, Madison Square Garden survived enough to be turned into a fortress. According to locals, the original raider gang had fortified it with the scavenged materials from the surrounding ruins, creating the Mad Square. It had changed hands several times ever since, with each new occupant further improving on the defenses.

 

Jon had taken a peek into the now empty structure, and it was warped into a maze of brick and sheet metal filling the entirety of the arena. The once spacious interior was now filled with haphazard hallways and rooms that grew several floor above where the roof once was. Weapon ports dotted the exterior walls, along with gibbet cages and stakes. The surrounding blocks were cannibalized to the ground, ensuring minimal cover to all approaches towards the fortress, and several layers of barricades ringed the former arena to add further obstacles to any would-be besiegers.

 

It was impressive enough, from a wastelander’s perspective. From the Nexus’ perspective, the whole thing might as well be a pillow fort manned by straw dolls wielding chopsticks. The massive, thousands strong raider gang that last inhabited the Mad Square had been quickly swept aside by Sev’s robots and armored soldiers, and supposedly all of them were taken alive.

 

Poor fucks. That’s the last anyone will ever see of them.

 

The nearby settlement of the Square in contrast was heavily fortified in response to the existence of the Mad Square, somehow being able to exist rather prosperously so close to the raider’s stronghold. They had used the rubble around Times Square to build up a durable wall to protect themselves, and apparently it held well enough for the place to grow and become a major local influence. Kind of like Diamond City in a way, sans the stupid armor.

 

Again, a very impressive layout from Jon’s centuries of traveling and surviving the wasteland, but the snobs who grew fat off trade were quickly humbled when the representatives from the Nexus showed off the bare minimum of what it could do. And with how much land was being swallowed up, the folks at the Square were now effectively an enclave within Nexus lands until they caved in and joined the Nexus. 

 

Jon didn’t bother visiting the place, seeing how they had no tolerance for ghouls like him, unlike his new home.

 

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Say what you want about Sev being an un-democratic, un-American autocrat and the Nexus Severalty being a necessary Commie-like evil in this post-war world, but the state really looked out for its people. And ‘people’ included ghouls like Jon who were fully accepted without even a hint of reluctance or distaste. Sure some of the smoothskins still looked at him funny, but he was as protected by Nexus law as any of them.

 

And unlike some of his ‘kin’, Jon appreciated the ongoing efforts within the Nexus to reverse ghoulification, as unsuccessful as it is so far. The latest news from the ghouls involved in that project was a bit more promising than the last time; either you’d be buried as a smoothskin from the process, or you’d be stored in an urn. 

 

A definite progress from being melted into a puddle of goo.

 

Sighing away that thought, Jon returned his attention to the quiet ruins of NYC. The occasional hum of Sentinels swimming overhead reminded him that he was as safe as safe can be, but along with the crumbled and hollow buildings around Jon, they also reminded him of how much the world he once knew was truly gone. There will likely never again be a United States of America, even if the Nexus swallowed up the entire continent. Not with how Sev was running things. 

 

Not with how the American Dream was replaced with that of the Nexus’ Hope. And Jon couldn’t blame anyone for it. What Sev offered was a far better deal than anyone could ever offer in these harsh times, a true utopia amidst a radioactive nightmare. 

 

What are the pre-war romantics going to do? Go carve their own land out of the Nexus?

 

Jon’s gaze fell to a dilapidated house that showed signs of living in recently. The blood stains leading into the doorway looked recent, at least. He gave a sigh and chuckled drily to himself.

 

Creating a new life outside of the Nexus… It’d be back to living in shacks and crumbled buildings again, never being able to sleep too deeply for fear of trespassers. You’d have to fully trap and fortify prime real estate like this blood-tainted home to secure it, and even then you’d need preparations for a hasty exit, because super mutants, deathclaws and hidden mole rat nests are a thing in the wasteland.

 

And there’s also the constant dreading of the slow erosion of your sentience that might devolve you into another rabid feral. Because outside of the Nexus, there’s no Broad Spectrum Cure to keep your mind from rotting, no free medical services to keep a withered ghoul from withering even more.

 

Fuck that. Nora’s idealistic fanclub can go ahead and commit a slow and torturous suicide outside, but Jon knew better than to just throw away life in an actual advanced civilization for the hopeless pinings of one several lifetimes ago. And if the Nexus actually ended up with the process to safely reverse ghoulification, Jon would gladly pledge his allegiance to the harem-owning cult leader and march to whatever tune Sev wants him to.

 

Jon took another good look at the ruins around him and sighed again. There’s still something he could do, something he should do for his and other ghouls’ old memories at the very least. He’d keep scouting the corpse of New York City, and note down every notable landmark. Sev was already preserving some historical buildings in Boston, so an idea floated around to try and appeal for the restoration of several cultural landmarks here. Or better yet, get Sev to rebuild NYC back to a major population center. So far, Jon’s got the Empire State Building and Madison Square Garden (the latter out of sentimentality to his first relationship) noted down. 

 

The Statue of Liberty was something the ghouls back in Boston were still debating over, because some saw the act as a perversion of old American ideals. Jon would still add that to his list when he submitted it to Sev. The old lady did sort of fit with the Nexus after all, what with taking in the desperate and liberating the enslaved and all that.

 

He just hoped Sev wouldn’t decide to add laser rifles or a Pip-Boy onto Lady Liberty.

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