» Sun Jun 12, 2011 11:28 pm 
One Woman, One Symbol, One Endless Need to Run
LET’S START AT THE VERY BEGINNING…
The early morning air was cool, even refreshing. Frieda stirred gently, opening her eyes and taking a deep breath.
Time to run.
It was the same thing every morning. By dawn, she was wide awake, listening to the voice inside her head telling her it was time to get up and exercise. Frieda sat up and stretched her arms to the sky. A few stars were still visible. She didn’t know why she woke up knowing she had to run, but she did know that trying to ignore that voice was impossible. She tightened the laces on her black boots stamped with the E-and-stars of the Enclave, secured her plasma pistol bearing the same marking, and stood up. Frieda tied her waist-length, blonde hair into a ponytail, and was off.
It had been a few weeks since she’d left Grayditch. Other than spending a few days in Megaton, and a few more in Canterbury Commons, she’d taken up the life of a nomad, sleeping under the stars in the desert of the Capital Wasteland. She drifted from place to place trying to find work. It didn’t seem to matter that she was a highly skilled electrician, with a little bit of knowledge of robotics – most people either wanted a merc, a hunter, a scavenger, or a prosttute.
“…and you’re far too cute to really be any of those things, aren’t ya?” some man called Flash in Big Town had smirked at her.
Frieda was pretty – gorgeous, to be precise. Her grey eyes, nose, cheeks, and lips were perfectly proportioned and positioned on her face. Her teeth were straight. She had naturally long eyelashes, and her lips were a sweet, rosy shade of pink. Add to this her very athletic, trim body, and height of nearly six feet, Frieda easily turned heads wherever she went.
She hated it, though she knew that most women would have killed to have her looks. Her appearance seemed to be the first, and only, thing anyone would ever notice about her. Men, and occasionally women, barraged her with cheesy pick up lines and watered down drinks wherever she went, and no one ever seemed interested in the fact that she had a brain in her head, and even, a particularly skilled trade.
So, she drifted. Day to day survival distracted her from dwelling on thoughts of her former boyfriend, Pawnee, who disappeared the very day they had left Grayditch together. It also kept her from thinking too much about the missing memories of her past, and identity.
That morning’s run was uneventful. Most were; it seemed as though when she got up at the crack of dawn, even the beasts in the Wasteland were still asleep. Never the less, the one morning, weeks ago, that she didn’t bring her plasma pistol with her she was chased up a tree by an albino radscorpion, where she remained marooned for most of the day until it skittered off to harass some other passerby.
Frieda had made her way west after leaving Canterbury Commons. There were fewer settlements, and the landscape was rockier and far more interesting. Quieter. She doubled over, having returned to her bag and where she’d made her camp the night before, panting. Sweat slid down the sides of her face and dripped into the dust at her feet. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand and straightened, looking out to the day’s journey.
More rocks, more canyons. Might as well get started. She took a swig of lukewarm water before replacing its cap and tossing the bottle back into her bag. She stretched up, her neck and shoulders popping with the movement, and set out.
Frieda walked steadily for a while, listening to her footsteps, and keeping her eye out for hostiles. She picked her way down a steep cliff face and continued west through the riverless canyons. Eventually, she tired of the poor visibility, and made her way back up a slope to the top of the ridges.
It’s almost beautiful. The sun had fully risen by then, and illuminated the landscape with a pure, golden light. Off to her right were some stagnant, festering, irradiated shallow ponds, but in the morning sunshine appeared to have a green shimmer that contrast sharply with their colourless surroundings. They almost looked like emeralds embedded in silver.
How can I even make such an anology? Frieda took a breath and shook her head to clear her thoughts. She glanced around before continuing to walk. The satellite array to the south had shrunk farther into the distance. She kept a fair pace, distracted by her thoughts.
It had been no use. Frieda had attempted all kinds of things to try and have a “normal” life – settle down, make friends, even have a boyfriend – but in the end, her amnesia continued to haunt her through it all. The lack of identity was what upset her the most. She frowned, picking up her pace, when in front of her the cliffs were ending and she could see an arrangement of decrepit picnic tables and the husks of camping trailers.
Oh, [censored]. I remember this place, now. That means –
Frieda whipped her head to the left, her heart rate suddenly accelerated. She squinted and could see just past a clump of old trees a glint of shiny metal.
It was the hull of the ship she’d woken up inside. It was still there. Before really thinking, she took a step towards the wreck. Her foot found no ground and instead sunk into the air next to the cliff face.
Frieda gasped, flailing her arms to regain her balance, but it was too late. She landed, hard, on her backside on the edge of the cliff, which crumbled under her weight. Frieda cried out as gravity pulled her down the rock face to the floor below. She landed in a heap of limbs, dust, and rocks.
“Well, that wasn’t smart, was it?” she muttered. Frieda pushed herself onto her hands and knees and groaned. Her whole body was sore from the fall, but nothing seemed particularly injured. She slowly rose to her feet. The black leggings she wore underneath her beige cargo shorts were torn over her right knee, which looked to be scraqed underneath, but not heavily bleeding. She dusted her legs off and felt her hands sting – both palms were scraqed. Sighing, she leaned over to retrieve her bag where it had landed. Nothing appeared to be damaged inside, which prompted her to check her plasma pistol at her waist. The fall had scuffed it up a little bit, but it didn’t appear to have sustained any other damage.
I suppose if all these things have lasted over two hundred years, including a nuclear war, what’s another fall down a cliff?
She sighed once more and turned towards the ship she’d abandoned all those months ago. Maybe this time, it’ll trigger something in my memory. Maybe, this time, there’ll be another clue. Something I missed when I was too scared to take a better look.
Frieda approached the ruined ship cautiously. There didn’t appear to be anyone, or anything, around. She walked right up to the cockpit and peered inside.
It looked the way she remembered it. All buttons, knobs, and dials, and none of the “words” in English. In fact, it looked as though it hadn’t even been touched by the Wasteland. Frieda had expected at least a thin layer of dust would have settled over it, but there appeared to be not a speck. The fabric of the seat didn’t even appear to have faded after days in direct sunlight.
Frieda walked around its perimeter, looking for anything else that may have been familiar, or at least, would trigger some kind of hidden memory. She came around to the other side of the cockpit and looked inside once more. She exhaled, crossing her arms on the edge of the opening.
The sound of a gun’s hammer being pulled back not too far away caught her attention.
“Who the hell are you?” demanded a raspy voice.
Frieda turned her head towards the sound. A figure, not readily apparent male or female, was holding a 10mm pistol out in front of his body with both hands, about twenty feet away. He wore a dirty, beige coloured trench coat over jeans and grey sneakers, and a pale yellow shirt. His hair was a dull brown, short, and absolutely wild, standing out in all directions. He must have come from the campsite and was trying to scavenge something off the wreckage.
Frieda swallowed, hoping her nervousness wasn’t too obvious. She knew that if this person wanted to shoot her, she wouldn’t be able to pull her plasma out in time to defend herself. “Are you a scavenger?”
“Answer me, first!”
Definitely a woman. When she spoke, Frieda paid close attention to the shape of the face. The cheekbones were soft, and distinctly female. The voice wasn’t a high pitched male, but a low toned female. An alto.
Frieda raised her hands in a short surrender. “It may surprise you, but I actually came out of this thing.”
The woman didn’t immediately answer. Her hands twitched slightly, making Frieda’s stomach drop. “You’re [censored]ting me.”
“I’m not. I don’t know why I’m admitting that to a complete stranger – might have to do with having a pistol aimed at my face – but it’s as true as it’s sitting here.”
“Prove it!”
[censored]. Frieda had no way of proving she’d emerged from the craft. She took a breath and held it in her mouth, before exhaling. “I can’t,” she confessed. “I woke up there, right there in that seat,” she jerked towards the pilot’s chair with her head, “about three or so months ago. When I did, I had no memory of my identity or my past.” Sweat beaded on her forehead, irritating her brow, but she didn’t dare move to wipe it.
Another pause. “Amnesia?”
“That’s right.”
The pistol remained trained towards Frieda’s head. “Convenient. I guess if I were ex-Enclave, too, I’d just tell people I couldn’t remember who I was, neither.”
“What? N-no! I swear, I’m telling you –“
“Can it,” the woman spat. “I recognize your gun, haven’t seen ‘em around since the Enclave made a mess of things ‘round here. That there’s no Enclave vessel.”
That was new. “What?” Frieda repeated.
“I said, that didn’t come from the Enclave. It came from somewhere else.” The woman sniffed and made a quick motion with the pistol, as though to shoo Frieda away. “I don’t know why you’d bother coming down here saying all that stuff, wasting my time with such lies, but it don’t matter. Just [censored] off.”
“How do you know it’s not an Enclave ship?” Frieda was genuinely curious. It had never occurred to her that the source of it had come from elsewhere.
“Shh!” the woman hissed suddenly. She was staring off, behind Frieda.
This woman just proves herself more and more polite. The blonde turned her head to follow the woman’s gaze. There was movement behind some nearby bushes. Frieda squinted to see what was there.
Slowly, long, claw-like fingers attached to sinewy arms emerged from the long-dead shrubbery.
[censored] hell. A deathclaw. Frieda slowly lowered herself to a crouch, drawing her plasma pistol and flipping a switch, readying it to fire.
“Hey!” the woman protested in a hiss. Frieda watched as the deathclaw stopped advancing, and turned its head towards the sound.
She thought she saw the beast smile as it looked towards where the woman was standing.
