Hi everyone,

So, The Siphon will be a series of interconnected notes and stories that rely on moments more than long passages. The idea is that they will flesh out the context of this world and act as bread crumbs for a developing story. Feedback welcome!

Note: In some cases (especially in this first entry), the grammar and sentence structures might be sparse, abrasive or even horribly mangled. This is due to the nature of what's happening and who it's happening to. It'll divvy up as time goes on. Same for the pov (1st & 3rd person). I'd like to try different approaches and just have fun with it all... Hope it works out.

PART 1

first
the bark eater

Been here awhile. Can’t remember. Aching. Bits of ash in my eye. White light now. Like when I was born. Bright. Growing from the ground up to the light. Reminds me of now. Here. Now. Burnt wood. Ash. Heat and blood in my mouth. Everything gone in a moment. Just white light and ringing now.

Getting up. Left side bloody from debris. Small tears. Bits of metal. Jacket in tatters. Wood splinters. Hard to see. Smoke. Fork in shoulder. Pains not bad. No, pains not a bad thing. Three bodies. Can see them. Smell them. Visitors… Didn’t expect visitors this far out. Didn’t seen them. Didn’t hear them. Was too close to mines. Can't happen again. Have to leave. Can’t stay here anymore. Tripwire worked. Thought they’d cut it. Set off mines instead.

Ones still moving. Going nowhere. Would have let you go if I’d seen you out in the wastes. Leave well enough alone. Coughing now. Both of us coughing. Turn him over. Blood. Going nowhere. He’s trying to talk. No words yet. Breathing hot air.

Mouth tastes like ash. Dirty water somewhere. Supplies are a mess. Everything everywhere. Visitors must have had an explosive. Too much. Blood. Placenta. Ha. No. Not born again. Not here.

Visitor looking up at me. Voice is back. Hard to hear through ringing. Can’t waste time.

“help me. you got supplies. ain’t fair you got so many. please.”

Need water. And I need a knife.

“come on. damn it.” Distraction now. I tell him to stop talking.

Says “[censored] you.” Shouldn’t get his hopes up. Just be disappointed when he dies. Should tell him that. Ha. No. Can’t waste time. [censored] you. I'm sure it's what they came for. Doesn’t matter now. Just a boy. Maybe my age. Maybe even me. No. Not me. Younger and men’s eyes wouldn’t stay on him. Winds blown all the ash out.

Need water and a knife.

Later now. Supplies packed. Ringing gone. Getting food ready. Running low on salt and brine now. Visitor stopped crying. Good. Was watching me. Seemed scared. Was an uncomfortable moment. Dirty tears across his face. Like mine. Back then in the white light. Saw that feeling on his face. Coming into something. Feeling things disappear around him. Feeling things ruined. Things ending. Feeling fear. Fear and sweat in your eyes. And dirty tears. Watching him now. He’s silent, his blood trying to hide. Running to cracks and burrowing into wood, sticking under my nails. Blame the boy, blood. Shouldn’t have come here. Come with me and find a new home in the dust.

Finished with his friends. Should check him out. Nothing in his pockets. Any of their pockets. Torn paper. Single pistol. Three rounds. Nothing useful. No food. No water. Doesn’t matter now. Not breathing anymore. Bleed out while I cut and cured his friends. Sun will be up soon. Traveling today. But no need to scav. No need to hunt. Meat found me.

cool, not bad.

second
the tracer

The barkeep kept her in his peripheral vision. She’d been there for nearly an hour. Light shone in through the wall creating a dull ambience in the dust around her. Noise from the market was only a murmur here; and he figured she was glad for it. He liked how she ate, hungrily, but not without diligence. So completely involved. Now and again she’d eye him from behind the steam of her bowl. He started cleaning the glasses again.

She finished before long and sat watching the tired crowds shuffle between the cracks in the wall. A deep scar ran down her index finger. The finger itself was mapping something out on the counter top. Or maybe it was counting… the barkeep didn’t know.

"You know any caravans going north?" she asked. "Take someone with them?"

The barkeep started and burned his lips with a broth he’d been sipping. He could have sworn she caught him off guard on purpose. He winced before replying, "Might be."

"Might be." she let into the air without a hint or irritation. She'd lit a cigarette. The smoke mixed with the afternoon dust.

"Suppose," he said. "Brotherhood’s got that tunnel there now.”

“No. Something above ground.”

“Not many people headed there. Might take you for a price." He could feel the smoke from her mouth in his nostrils now. He eyed the beaten brown leather she wore on her shoulders and wondered how badly she wanted to go. "There's a rider comes north around now, end of the month. Been a guide now and again. Heard he grew up in the mountains there north of the wasteland."

She nearly paused at this, the scared finger twitched. The woman glanced at him, catching his eyes before he could look away.

"Friend of yours?" the barkeep ventured.

"Don't know yet." She tossed the remainder of her cigarette in what was left of her noodles and got up.

"Wish you well.” He said, “You know… I could probably help you.”

She threw down some caps and smiled at the table. "Careful, keep. Some of us have more blood on our minds than dirt."

His face went red. He straightened his apron and looked up in time to see her dodging a water peddler before moving into the crowd.

Quite hard to follow. Maybe it's because I'm dutch, but I can't seem to sketch the situation half of the time.

If you could make it all a bit more readable, I think it could be a good story.


Say what?

thanks for checking it out dragon!



Hey, lavanoth,

Yeah, I know it’s a bit vague so far. It’s kinda on purpose… a bit of a gamble... but i'm trying not to give away the context of the events just yet. HOWEVER, if it’s getting in the way of understanding things and hence no one is gonna make it past the first post (!!!), I'll change things up. There will be more context in future scenes.

Question: are you having trouble with the dialog (looking back I could punctuate it better) or the entire scene?

i.e. I could try changing things like…

“There's a rider comes north around now, end of the month.” into “There’s a rider… comes north ‘round now. End of every month.” Does that make more sense?

I’m trying to play around with the way people talk. I, for one, NEVER talk or even think in full sentences. So, I'm just trying to reflect that. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks a ton for leaving feedback! Really appreciate it!

That first piece made me think of The Stranger in its sentence structure. well that or most post apocalyptic fiction (Try The Road by Cormac McCarthy) love the idea so far and waiting for more story line to go off before I start trying to make leaps of logic.

Hey Movintarget,

Both great books, but if you wanna talk McCarthy... Blood Meridian! That's a book about the apocalypse if i ever read one.... though technically it's historical fiction. Which makes it even more horrifying.

Thanks for the feedback!

Next Installment (actually a continuation of two) coming up...

second (continued)
the tracer

Glad to be out from under the barkeep’s lonely eye, the tracer walked down the path from the noodle house. Water peddlers clogged the main through way with their creaking wooden carts. Dull brahmin bells swung under the handles as the peddlers shouted through labored breathing. On either side of the path sat metal huts of garments, spare parts and dust. Too hot to hock their wares, the shopkeeps sat behind protective fencing shooing flies and rubbing grime from their eyes.

She climbed a number of stairs into a large station house. Wooden benches lead the tracer to the opposite exit. The floor was puddled and the benches stacked with burlap bags of vegetables and meat and their sleeping unshowered owners.

Exiting the station house, she came to a wooden dock leaning to the side of a large red bricked tunnel. The maw of the of it fell passed the sun’s reach and entered a silence she could not see past. A single sign over it read NORTHEAST. At the far end, a brotherhood rail guard sat on a bench wiping the sweat from his neck.

She moved as far as she could from the unloading areas and sat behind a series of metal boxes watching the empty tracks. Beside her a few men with worn work gloves eyed her before going back to dozing.

Across the tracks, she watched a group of children throw rocks at an eyebot. It floated atop a thick chain inside a low cut fence as if a circus sideshow. The chain dangled from its belly to a bolt in the ground and a bloodstained Enclave uniform covered its sensors. Its round rusted body bobbed and swayed like a sad metal balloon, while its broken laser sputtered in vain at its oppressors.

The tracer listened to the children laugh and shriek over the eyebot’s static-laced messages, “…don’t care about America! All they care about is fulfilling their own selfish... take a tally of these agitators, shall we. There is of course our newest threat, born from the Enclave itself, Colonel Augustus Autum and his band of traitor... be fooled by their false promises of supposedly clean water or their former connections... your government, the Enclave. They are just as dangerous as any other gun toting band of thugs. Even more so, being in exile. And always, there is the Br…”

The tracer leaned back and watching the tracks began thinking of things past.

Off to a very interesting start, and your writing is a cut above. I don't find it too hard to follow; understanding will come with time and more context.

Thanks StClair! I'm really glad you're enjoying it so far. I'll try and keep it up to par. I know the entries and short and far between, but I'm trying not to post without thinking. Once the story really gets going, I should have longer passages.

third
notes

The children had thought it fun to watch over the hill from behind the rocks. The little machine men walked in their straight lines holding their steel. Worn red and black armor turning too and fro like little birds. The brothers and their sister would scare each other, pretending they had been spotted by the patrol and would run from the hill screaming and laughing. What if ti has been real, they giggled to each other. Oh, they got you. Darry, no! Such was their fun.

They watched their father and his friends shout back and forth about the little men in red and black. They'd get so red in the face as to look almost like them. The brothers and their sister never understood way father would grab their arms and tell them Never, Never to go out looking for those men. Never. But of course, they did.



08.02.2277, 00:24 Hours, Field Log: Defender Balinick
Subject: Megaton Crater

It's been a week and we've nothing new to report. Radiation levels hinder excavation in the area. The distress signal continues to emanate 3 miles within the blast radius. Scouting attempts have resulted in severe radiation poisoning. Sentry RH-9, assigned to our patrol, continues to map the interior of the crater, but is unable to locate the signal's origin due to high levels of radio interference. Signal strength remains strong and constant. I still hold to the belief that the signal is not coming from a finite energy source.

We've sealed the surrounding area, but are meeting increased resistance to our presence. Local populations continue to harass our perimeter patrols. I fear word my be spreading that we are in some way directly responsible for the destruction of the settlement. I've advised patrol not to open fire on the local populations as they they currently pose little threat. Stone throwing and threats have been the extent so far. However, the longer we remain, the more brazen they become. Please advice.



The man they called father watched from the hill behind the rocks. This was the third round the patrol had made today and the father knew their armor was growing heavy. He knew if felt light on them in the morning, but no amount of technology could keep that metal from their shoulders forever. He kept his eyes on the red and black as they passed down below. He turned to his brother who cocked his rifle and looking at the sun, spat. After a count of three, they rested their rifles on the rock and opened fire.

fourth
the bark eater


Awake. Sweating. In the night. in the dark. Put my hand on my pistol and listen. Wet. Everything's wet. Rain. Nothing past that. It's raining now. And there is silence in the world. Rain. Can feel it through my sweat. Soft and cold. Skins steaming. Like tea. Take off the jacket. Cold seeps in. Silence.

Seeing things in my sleep again. The same. Always. From back in the capital. With Elias. Hearing it all. So loud. So. Don't think of it. Can't. So push it away. Push it. Be back when I sleep. Can breath until then.

Waters good. Tastes good. Doesn't sting the lips. Wasting time now. Have to start collecting. Leather. Hides. Plastic from scav in Trenton. Move quick now. Move quick. Collect this. Doesn't sting. Cleaner than the filth on the ground. Empty bottles and brahmin hides. Tins and buckets. Not much, but enough. Enough to travel on.

Need to wash. Put my clothes out. Rinse, not wash. Same with me. Rain. From where.

Knees against my chest. Feeling clean now. Feels good here in the dark. But don't sleep. Don't sleep. Stay up and listen to the rain. Sleep isn't needed now. Sleep isn't silent. Push it away. Can rest without sleep. Can rest in this rain. Soft and cold and quiet.

fifth
the tracer

"Follow me to Eden, child. The Garden awaits."

The tracer blinked herself from a daze and squinted up at a shriveled shape before her. The sun was burning a line around him and she had trouble distinguishing his features. He held out his hand in an earnest gesture. She turned away from the filth under his nails and the damp scent escaping his clothes. She tiredly shook her head and shooed him off as if a fly.

He acted astonished at her resistance, then moved on to land on the dozing workmen who paid him even less mind. A larger bearded man spit on the peddler's bare feet. The tattered man moved down the line raising his hand and offering salvation.

The tracer rubbed her eyes and made note not to loose herself again. Sympathizers were bad enough without the heat. The rail tunnel continued to hold its secrets and she sighed. In the station house, the rail guard leaned near an older man behind the counting booth. Neither spoke. She tightened her sleeves and adjusted her position.

The rail came within the hour. Thin streams of black began to curl up from out from the dark and a slow metallic groan echoed out from the depths like an iron giant being birthed from a furnace. The black began to billow as the groan became a deafening screech causing the tracer to cover her ears and grit her teeth. The wooden dock began to tremble as if the earth was shivering at the sound.

The rail emerged as a hulking rusted python. Atop the coils of the engine sat three brotherhood rail guards, guns out and armor blackened from the engine's furnaces. Behind them came segment after segment of riders, merchants and wares. Brahmin cars housed caravans cutting their travels short. Merchants and their guards began dimming their lanterns as they adjusted for the sun. Guns were slung and pack brahmin stood up.

On flatbed cars sat the riders. Mercs, hunters, slavers, even the occasional former pitt slave, freed by their ever-blessed Ashur. The tracer knew the brotherhood's stance on the riders. In exchange for the rail service, each had biometric registrations documenting their obligation to assist in the defense of the rail system. It was the only way the brotherhood had been able to bring down the number of attacks along the route up north. Though she felt they were about as trusted as a pack of hungry dogs.

Not many families traveled the line to Johnstown anymore. Settlers had gone out when the system first started, but their numbers slowed over the years. If anything, the promise of water was bringing them back. In droves. No doubt blending in with the mass migrations heading to the capital these days. The only wasters leaving now were left over ghouls and she figured they were safer for it.

The front end stopped near 80 meters from her. Under orders of the rail guards, the dozing workmen began unloading crates of ammo marked BOS. Gifts from the industrial north. Gifts from the ever-blessed. The workmen tottered the crates into steel door rooms and came back for more.

The tracer stepped back against the wall and watched the riders unload. They looked a plague of burnt men with their soot covered faces. They dusted their hair in plumes of black and coughed. All looking exactly alike in their filth. She began to wonder if she'd be able to distinguish one from the many, but her worry fell when they began taking their goggles off. From behind the unnatural black came pairs of eyes. Blue. Green. Brown. Grey. She scanned them all until she found, with a mixture of hesitance and anticipation, who she meant for.

He was near the back of the car unlocking his pack from the railing. Even under the soot, she could see the large vertical scars running down the back of his head and neck. He dusted his short hair, letting through small traces of white. She guessed he must be near 50 years now. The man disembarked with his pack and walked to a crowded water barrel and washed his head and face with a number of other men. He spat into it and started her way.

As he got closer she could see he was traveling with another man. Younger and from the Pitt by the looks of him. Both wore backpacks, rifles, and traveling armor. She followed them a ways. They clocked out at the rider registration and through the bags of meat and vegetables towards the town pathway.

With the arrival of new rail passengers, the path was alive. Vendors competed for attention shouting wares and crowding the way. Brotherhood caravans lumbered past with their crates. The men headed towards the nearest outdoor bar and began haggling with the barkeep. Eventually the scarred man let down his bag, locked it to his partner's and headed to the back wall to relieve himself. She waited until he was finished and stopped him in the alleyway.

"Jericho," she let out. The man turned and let out a chuckle.

"Well. Trace," he said.

"You're well."

"Well enough."

"And you're a rider now."

"Yeah. Near four years. Since day one. You?"

"Never been."

"And how'd you know about me? Been eating noodles or what?"

When he didn't get an answer he went on, " The [censored] you want, Trace. Ten years since I dealt with you. And last I saw, you sure as hell weren't Defender class," he nodded towards the markings escaping the glove on her right hand.

"You still for hire? I need a collection agent."

He hesitated, "Yeah? Need me to collect what?"

"3000 caps and 500 enclave cred. 500 now. 2500 and the enclave cred on my safe return to Fairfax."

"Where we going?"

"North."

"How far."

"Can't say."

"Rail?"

"No. Strictly above ground."

"I got a choice?"

"You'll find no greater fortune."

"Yeah, guess I don't, huh," he ran his hand over his chin and motioned towards the bar, "What about, Brian?"

"You trust him?"

"He's useful."

"You think we need him, it comes out of your pay. And he follows me. Not you." She gestured him to the bar, "as they say, the garden awaits."