So, I've started writing a fan fiction ^{_{(Can you believe it!?! Nobody writes those!)}} and I want people to read it and tell me what they think. In all honesty, I just want your honesty.
I wanted to post the links here, but apparently that's a no no.

I've written four chapters so far, and they all can be found by just googling Kaibomb, going through either my deviant art or my Fanfiction.net account. I'd suggest the fanfiction account, because there'll be a lot less to dig through.

Chapter five will be out... shortly eventually. Probably.

Also, if the Bethesda staff wanted to use any of this for Idea's, that would be the best thing ever.

So, thanks for reading and whatnot.

-Kaibomb

Thing is -- and I know this from having a PM chat with a moderator about a year ago or so now -- the reason they don't like links to external content is because Beth doesn't want to be associated with explicit fan content. If you link to your work from here directly, and it has so much as uncensored profanity, Beth could take heat from someone who found it really offensive.

Ironic, yes, considering the content of Fallout is rated Mature. However, the internet is not censored (YAY) and as such, on a private site, they have a right to restrict the content.

There used to be a redirect with a disclaimer page that would post inbetween the forum and your site, but I don't remember where it is or if using it is still okay.

Threads such as this are frowned upon, in general, because you're still not just advertising your work posted elsewhere (with no other real purpose), you're also not using the redirect/disclaimer page.

You'll also be glad to know there are plenty of folks writing fanfiction...many of whom enjoy reading fic posted onto this site. I'd strongly encourage you to cross post it here!

Ayeaye sir!

How 'bout this one:

Vault 48: Chapter One

Fate is a funny thing.

That was what ran through my mind as I fell, surely to my death. Behind me there were men dressed in scraps of armor, pulling the triggers of shotguns and machine guns and a few handguns. There were at least thirty of them, and when faced with the choice of jumping off a cliff that fell into eternity, or facing them, I jumped.

And so I fell, wind ripping past me, my heart pounding. Why the hell would it be pounding if I had cast myself to this willingly? Jeez, the human body can be a real [censored] sometimes.

I hit cold tiles. I groaned, a sleepy mumble of thoughts that weren't quite words yet. The smooth checked floor was cold against my face. It was pretty relaxing actually, at least until the pain from the fall slammed into me. I jolted upright, both hands to my throbing head. For a second I was confused by where I had woken up, on the floor of the Cafe on the third level. But then the memories of last night started to come back to me, and I continued to rub my throbing head, now a headache being added to the bruises I was sure would turn up later. I had been waiting for Carmine, and when she didn't show up, I just couldn't bear to leave. Some part of me had wanted to do nothing more than stay there forever, waiting for her, and I had obliged it, and ended up falling asleep.

And look where it had gotten me. A headache, bruises, cold, hungry, and probably late for my morning shifts. Little [censored] had probably been fooling around with somebody else last night anyways. This is why I always left notes to self saying not to commit myself too deeply to one way of looking at things, it always ended up with me having a headache. Still, it may have been worth it to get to feel the momentary bliss of having a girl say yes to going out with me. I climbed back up into the soft leather booth chair, and layed my head down on the table. Screw work today. I had enough sick days piled up to take a month off, so heck, maybe I would today. But as if to tell me off right then and there, my pip boy began to ring its annoying bell that woke me up every morning. So I rose, walking back to my room. It took me a good fifteen minutes to get there, so there wouldn't be any time for breakfast, but I decided to take a quick shower, to let the water cool my head.

Water poured down on me, Icy and cold. [censored] vault. There was always something wrong with it, whether it was that the water was broken or the food processor had decided that everything should taste like broccolli for this whole week. I banged my head against the wall of the shower, sighing again. Life svcks. But it was home, and fore some reason I loved it. Then I was out, pulling on my leather jumpsuit and pipboy, having to pull on the glove a few times before the right fingers went thought the right holes. I walked out the door and reported to my post. I knew it was going to be a great day when the first thing a student asked was why another was eating paste. Kids are obvious and plain about what they said.

"'Cause he's stupid, Sarah."

So was I. She seemed satisfied with this awnser and skipped back to her desk in the front row. The lesson began and ended just like any other, starting with history; essentially a list of how and why America was so damned patriotic and would have won the war if China hadn't gotten in a cheap blow. In all truth I would have loved to tell the children the truth, that we were just as bad as the 'Evil' Chinese communists, extorting third world countries to keep our frail 'American Dreams's together. But I didn't. It wasn't part of my job description, and it probably would have just confused the hell out of them. The lesson went on to science, then grammar, then mathmatics. And then it was over, and I was free to wander about the vault untill curfew, which was still five hours away.

Now, I'm not saying that I hate the vault... Oh wait, yeah I am. But in truth I'd begun to love it too. The cold steel walls that kept out the bad things of the waste, the Air conditioning and refreshing units that kept us alive;even though they woke me up every night. Even the children that pestered and annoyed me every day of every week (Excepting sunday), had their own small soft spot in my heart. I had grown used to it all, and all of my hate for these things slowly faded away. But there was something I truely did hate. The Ideals. Vault 48, the vault named after the fifty three states of old; though that was probably coincidence. Everything in the vault was propoganda that they pumped into the peoples systems; Posters hung through out the vault, proclaiming the old worlds values and how they were what we would remain true too, and how great America was.

Unfortunantly, As a teacher, I had clearance to the more... Informative history texts and files. They were much more true than what we taught the children, and spoke with neither hate nor love toward any country. It was through these I had learned the truth of things in the world. Or at least in my little world. A den of patriotic feelings, cultivated by lies that I had been forced to teach. Not even the overseer knew all the truths that I did. Sure she probably knew that America hadn't been all it was cracked up to be, but she wasn't the type of person who sat down with history texts and poured over them like I was. She was strong and couragous, and even though she had inherited her position though birthright, she had earned it too, though careful and rightous use of her powers as Overseer. She was quite a looker too; blond hair that had never been cut, braided around her face, flowing past her shoulders, and a curvatious body that made me nearly start to salivate.

Damn it! Stop getting off track. Stupid brain. Let's just say that her tight leather vault 48 uniform left very, very little to the imagination.

I bet she even knew my name, even though we'd only been introduced once or twice. She'd been in the grade above me, always the shining star of her class, while I'd been... more of a dull mud planet. My only skill lay in retaining history. That's about as far as it goes.

I passed though the grey coridors of shiny gray steel, hands in the pockets of my suit. I hunched over a little, trying to look like as little of a threat as possible. It was a habit I'd developed, since my 6'1" height stuck out a little in a vault where the next tallest was 5' 11", and the next was 5'8". I passed by people I knew, not to say that there were more than a handfull in the vault I didn't. Being a teacher had that effect. You tended to meet a lot of people, whether as students or conserned parents.

"Hey there! Dr.Grey, right?" A clear voice rang out. I knew whose voice it was, since it was on the speakers every morning, and she said the pledge with us though a recording every day in the classroom. Her blond hair flipped and curled as she moved. The Overseer. Wait what? I nodded dumbly as she continued talking. "I wanted to see you later. I know you know more about the history of our great country than anyone else, and I want to ask you a few questions."

"Um, okay, I guess? Are you sure, er, aren't there any others more qualified than me?" My voice faltered as it left my throat, and stumbled on the words. Wasn't every day that I got to talk to the Overseer, And suddenly the thoughts from a few minutes ago came back to me. Stupid brain.

"Nope, not in all the vault. I've seen you reading those old texts, even while eating. Everybody says you know everything about history. Stop by my office at 18 hundred hours. See you then." She smiled as she walked off, hips swaying in a way my obnoxious brain couldn't help but point out.

What just happened? My first time talking to a girl that wasn't half my age in practically a month, not including the deli sandwitch girl or over a terminal, and she not only asked me out, but to her room, on an evening when neither of us would have anything the next day, do to my teaching duties and her ability to do whatever the hell she wanted.

I sighed, then continued my walk down the hall, the gray walls started to seem opressive again. Naturally. I bet she really did just want to talk about history. Just wanted to probe my mind to find out the truth of what had happened in some unimportant place hundreds of years ago. Then my smile returned. Actually, that didn't sound half bad. History was one of the few things I enjoyed, and the only thing above that on the list was spending time with a pretty girl, and since I got to do both I got pretty excited. There wasn't a downside to this equation. Either I got to spend a night romantically involved with the most beautiful woman in the vault, or at least in my opinion which was what mattered, or I go to spend it with the most beautiful woman in the vault talking about my favorite subject. Win-Win.

My jaw had practicaly unhinged itself, because of how wide my grin was, by time I got back down to the cafe where I'd spent the night. The memories soured my face for a few moments, but my smile lept right back onto my face as pretty quickly.

"Gonna spend another night here? Maybe I should bring in a matress." A beefy armed, and angry eyed chef wearing a typical chef hat said to me, cleaver in one hand and a slab of meat in the other. Now if I was anybody else in the world, with exception of my dad, I probably would have pissed myself at the sight. Fortunantly for the floor I was me, and I had grown up with the guy.

"Hey Chef. Nice knife." I said nonchalauntly as I took a seat at the bar. Chef grinned at me, eyes seeming to stare right down to my soul.

"Like it? I just had it sharpened. Nice to see that damned Mr.Handy over there work for his keep for once.

The Mr.Handy Hovering in the corner beeped angrily, speaking in a shrill computerized voice, "Hey! I do plenty around here! When was the last time you saw a radroach? Never, that's right, because I torch 'em before they get within a hundred yards of this place!" He raised his flame tossing appendage to emphsize his point.

Chef just laughed. "Last time I saw one? This morning!" He wagged his knife to point to a box full of dismembered radroach. The Mr.Handy unit beeped indignantly, then floated back to his corner and promptly shut off.

My eyebrow rose. "Uh, Chef, not that I'm questioning your cooking or anything, but whats up with the box of radroach meat?"

He put the knife down and pulled a beer from the fridge unit embeded in the wall. "To feed the hounds. They can't tell it from normal meat, and they much prefer it over the stale pellets that the food production units in the underwing puts out." I shrugged. What Chef did with his robotic hounds was his buisness. I'd never really liked the things myself, robotic parts clicking, their brains easily visible, always looking at you like they'd eat you in a moments notice if their HUD read you as a non-friendly. Which they would. I nodded thanks to Chef as he handed me the beer. So what if I was a teacher? Drinking was one of the only releases this vault had, and it was my right as an American to drink!

Geez, look at me. I'm starting to sould like the people from the old holovids. Oh well, I did what I did best;Shrugged and chugged.

"Sorry about last night," I said, almost to myself, "I just didn't want to leave. Some part of me wanted to wait for her."

Chef chuckled, his eyes never changing. They had always been angry looking, as long as I could remember. "No harm done. But you really should start to get home before curfew."

"Yeah, yeah." I mumbled. I took a second look around the cafe. There weren't many people here, just a older man drinking coffee and reading a newspaper and a couple sitting by one of the viewports into the magma lake that sat right next to the vault. I had heard that they found it on accident building this place, then, to lazy to change anything, just kept on building right next to it. Meh, it's probably what I would have done too.

I stayed and pvssyd with Chef for a while; Him, the Mr.Handy unit, and me all laughing to jokes we'd thought up during the day. I'd never met a bot like that Mr.Handy in my whole life. He was at least two hundred and twenty years old, and yet all he seemed to use his collected wisdom to do was come up with better jokes than us. And that he did. Before I knew it, it was already 1730, so I scooted off to my room to try to brush the smell of alcohol out of my mouth, and change into some less... worn clothing. People always commented on how my Vault suit looked more like a Utility suit that anything else. I hesitated to tell them that it truely was a utility suit. It was just so comfortable I couldn't stop wearing it.

But, that comfort would have to wait for another day. I stripped off the worn leather and sweaty undershirt, and took a quick shower, more of a hosing down than a real bath, but I didn't have time for it. I'd spent just a bit to long with Chef and the Mr.Handy. The cold water washed over me again, but this time, instead of chilling me to the bone, my new mirth kept me warm. I could barely remember the last time I'd been alone with a pretty woman. I got out of the shower and put on the fresh leather outfit I'd layed out, checking the clock on my pip boy as I did so. 1756. Nice. That left me just just enough time to get to her quarters exactly on time. If I ran.

I ran.

I checked my pip boy clock as I got to the steel yellow striped door, small words saying 'OVerseer' just beneath to the overly large bolded forty eight, and it told me that I was just on time. Even so, I decided to wait a few minutes to catch my breath. Didn't want to go in looking like a total idiot. Plus, I'm pretty sure women like guys who are fashionably late. I hoped.

I knocked on the hard steel door, and it rose shockingly fast.

"You're late." I heard, as she grabbed my collar and pulled me into her room. So much for fashionably late. She looked terrible.

Well, not terrible. That was probably impossible. But compared to when she requested me just a few hours ago, she had gone to hell. Her hair was fussed up, and her eyes were red. Had she been crying? What the hell? Her vault suit that was normally all perfectly giglined and orderly was wrinkly and off balance. She walked to a felt couch in the middle of her quarters, next to a large coffee table and more than a couple of book cases. There was clutter everywhere. Hadn't her mom taught her too pick up? [censored]. Her mom and dad were dead. Right. Not going to bring that one up. As she walked pulling me behind her, she began to explain why she had requested my presence.

"You see, I was trying to sleep yesterday, but I couldn't. I practically never can now days. I generally get away with sleeping in my office when I nod off, but I wanted to get some rest anyways. But when I decided it was hopless, I walked over to my terminal, trying to see if any issues had come up that I could ponder over, or any work to do, but I'd already done all of that the night before. So I, being bored, began to dig though some of the old history holovids, and texts."

[censored]. Please tell me this is heading somewhere else than I think it is.

"And I found something I really didn't... like."

[censored].

"You know more about history than anybody in the vault, right?" She turned to me, and gestured towards the couch as she took a seat herself.

"Well, I guess." I shrugged. I was trying to act non-chalant, but my brain was burning. I knew where this was going. I wanted to run out of that room, tell her that what she had found was wrong. But for some reason, I just couldn't; something about her just made me want to tell her the truth, and hope she could accept it.

"Good. So tell me, why did America support the panamanian revolution? Even when they knew that hundreds would die in the finging?" Her crystal blue eyes stared at me. In any other situation I would have told her how beautiful they were, but unfortunantly for me, I'm me, and like hell would I ever get into the circumstances where that would be acceptable. Damn it.

"They knew it would be the most beneficial thing. They knew that with that, they would be able to easily move their navy from one side of the world than the other." I shifted uncomfortably on the couch. She frowned and looked down. Then she searched over the coffee table with her eyes, and snatched up a magazine. She flipped through a page and pointed to a small picture in the corner.

"So why did they try to keep cuba under military rule? According to this article the Cubans hated America, even though it became the 53rd state later." She got closer to me, I could feel her warmth even though her leather suit and mine. Damn it brain, stop that [censored]; she's obviously going though a hard time, learning that America isn't all it was made out to be. But she was so soft...

"Uh, well, they really wanted it as a buffer from the east, at least that's their main excuse. Other than that it was a wealth of sugar and cheap labor, with beautiful land that the government would have made millions selling." I said pretty cofidently. I might not know how to comfort a woman going through a breakdown, but I knew my history. I think I'd rather have the other one right now though. Sigh.

"Huh. So they just wanted it because they would benefit them. Not because the spanish were oppressing them?" Her eye's seemed to sparkle with hope. [censored]. I was getting tired of shutting down her dreams.

"Well, I'm not saying that that didn't play a role in it, but from what I've read, the only real reason that that was ever brought up was to turn the citizens into bloodthirsty warmongers, who would excuse anything the government did as long as they thought that they would come out looking like heroes."

"Oh." She sighed too. "So what was it when we invaded Japan?"

"We wanted a station in Asia to run it from."

"And with Thailand?"

"Same thing. We wanted more control. Once we had a taste of Imperialism, we just couldn't stop."

"What about with Brazil? The people where truely suffering there!"

"Yeah, but what wasn't suffering was us when we got control over all of the uranium deposits underneath their rainforests."

"What about Greenland?"

"We benefited."

"Puerto Rico?"

"Imperialism."

"North Australia?"

"Now that, was a lot of gold."

She crumpled. Everything she had ever known was just torn from underneath her. Her America, the patriotic feelings that this vault was built on, suddenly died in her. She sobbed. She just sat there on the couch for hours, her face in her hands, just crying. It was probably much worse for her than it had been for me. I'd never really cared about America, plus I'd always assumed that it had darker motives. There were to many gaps in our textbooks for America's economy to make any sense otherwise. But her... She'd been raised on this. Her mother, her mother's mother, they'd all been raised on the knowlage that America was the greatest country in the world, that it was brave, and couragious, and strong; and they had modeled themselves after it. She probably had had it so branded into herself that America was perfect that learning all of this was like chopping off a arm. She could live, but she'd never be the same. Damn it brain. I knew she might not be the same, but I could hope. I didn't try to comfort her with false words, or even softer truths. I just held her shoulders, and let her cry herself to sleep.

I lowered her down on to the couch softly, trying not to wake her. I tried not to think about what she might think now, or how she might change. Instead, I went to her bedroom, and pulled a blanket out from inside the chest that held the bed materials. I set it over her shoulders softly, tucking in as best I could without making any noise. I shut the lights of then I made my way out through the pitch black of the room. I walked to the large metal door, which made far more noise openning than I'd have liked, and began to step out, when I heard a voice in the darkness.

"I'm sorry." Her voice echoed thoughout the room. It wasn't loud, or said with much force, but it was the only sound in the air. Heck, maybe she had said it in her sleep.

"Don't worry about it. I'll always be here when you need me." I whispered back. The vault brand automatic door came down with a clang.

* * *

I walked through a cold, pitch black hall. I could hear the sounds of steel doors opening and closing all around me, but I could see nothing, and all I could feel was the cold air around me. Then there was a light off in the distance, faded, not bright enough to illuminate more than a few feet around it, and it glowed the yellow of vault emergency lighting. Where the light hit, I could see a small child, holding a skull. Then as I watched, he smiled, and his smile grew and grew until his face ripped, his smile continuing to grow, then there were mouthes on the walls. Bright gnashing teeth filled the darkness, there were hundreds, thousands, and all of them were comming for me. There was no one to save me. I was all alone, and I screamed as the gaping jaws ripped me to shreds.

My heart beat furiously in my chest as I all but sprang from my bed. I had to escape, the teeth, they were... not there. Just a dream. Again. I covered my face with my hands and sighed. There was nothing here. No monster in the darkness waiting to snatch me up. Sometimes I wished there was though. I checked my pip boy, looking at the chronometer. 0336. I'd only been sleeping for a couple of hours. Another sigh slipped from my lips. I hoped that I hadn't screamed during the dream. I did that sometimes. It was one of the numerous reasons I was glad to have separate quarters from my parents. I guess that was a good thing about having a vault that was a few hundred under it's maximum capacity.

Vault 48 had been designed to hold an amazing two thousand people. Not that that would have really helped all of the people who weren't able to get to the vaults in time, or the over 331 million people who wouldn't have been able to fit into them. I'd done the math, and that was assuming that each vault had the capacity to hold a thousand people, and that they'd finnished building all 150 vaults. Another thing that I knew that others in the vault remained to be blissfully ignorant of.

Oh god. It all came back to me, the memories of the night before. I'd told the Overseer what was really happening, and she'd seemed pretty messed up about it. [censored].

Double oh god. What I'd said... so lame. There I was with an oppertunity to say any number of heroic and majestic things, things that might have made her see me in a different light all together, and I'm pretty sure I just friend-zoned myself. "Why in the hell am I so lame..." I muttered in the darkness, before rolling into a comfortable position and falling back to the wonderful oblivion of sleep in my warm, comfortable bed.

Waking up again was not nearly as pleasant. The bed was warmer, I was comfortable, and everything was peaceful. Except for my Pipboy screeching at me. I slammed my fist down on my Pipboy bearing wrist, but immediatly regretted it. Jesus, what did they make these things out of? With my right hand throbing from the impact, I rolled off my bed and stood up in one swift and effecient manner I'd perfected over the years. Sure I wasn't smart, but at least I could get out of my bed effeciently. The vents put on quite a show of making as much noise as they could, and shaking violently to pump out air before going still. Seemed like every piece of machinery in here was going to break. I glared at my Pipboy to try to find out what had woken me up, after all, it was a sunday, and was suprised to find a message from the Overseer.



Wow, Nice detail. I just hoped she wouldn't try to go through the extensive histories in the library just to dig up even more of America's dark secerets. My hopes were made to be dashed anyways, so why not. The time read 1130, which I decided was enough sleep for one day. So, I picked my Utility suit up off the floor, and pulled it on. I would be damned if I was going to end up smashing the rest of what little pride she had left in our vault and America, but I'd be double damned if I did it wearing something uncomfortable.

And so once again I set out thought the dark and cold steel halls of my vault, not knowing that it would be my last, for a long, long time. I passed by the reactors and brightly lighten signes that spoke of where to go. What idiot would ever need them though, having grown up her already? But the halls and the lights and sounds of grumbling air proccessors calmed me down. It was peaceful. Roughly. I sighed as I came to the doors of the library. I had no real reason to obey the Overseer, since every real decision she made had to be put through the citizens before it was enforced at all, and I somehow doubt that she'd have put a request like this through, and doubted even more that anybody would have given it more than a passing glance before they denied it, petty as it was. But I still pressed the large button that opened the door and stepped through.

She was looking a lot better than she had the night before; she'd cleaned up her hair and put on a cleaner and unwrinkled suit. She sat at a hard metal table surrounded by books, trying to read more than one at once, it seemed. Her eye's followed me with a unsettling furiocity as I entered the library, and took a seat across from her, plopping myself down in the rough and hard metal chair. I immediatly found myself regretting leaving the comfort of my bed.

"You're late, again." She said, her eyes never leaving mine. I shrugged.

"I only woke up about ten minutes ago." I said, putting my hands behind my head and leaning back in the chair, the front legs quivering ever so much off the ground. She scowled at me again. Why the hell did she look so angry?

"I guess that makes me feel a little better about what I've done." She sighed and then rubbed her temples. What had she done? I was opening my mouth to say something when she elaborated. "I deleted all questionable files from the vault database." I gaped, front legs of my chair slammed down to the ground.

"YOU WHAT?!" I shouted, drawing the attention of the librarian, who gave me a dissaproving look as she put her index finger to her lips. [censored] it. I started again in a hushed voice. "You did what?!"

"I deleted all of the files that made America look like the bad guy, that way the next Overseer and teacher won't be able to see them and they won't ever question america in any way." She explained calmly, fire still burning in her eyes.

"Wait, wait wait," I said, now I was really confused. Sometimes, I wished I was smarter. Okay, a lot of times. "What do you mean, 'Next Overseer and techer'?"

Her furious glare turned to one of slight dissapointment, like a father after his son fails to hit a home run in the final inning. She said to me simply, "We're leaving the Vault."

Just like that. Like it was the simplist thing in the world. Even though for all our lives, we'd been taught that the radiation of the waste would kill us all if we let it. Even though we'd been told that the radiation had mutated the once glorious people and animals of our great country into blood thirsty monsters that would destroy everything we stood for without a seconds hesitation or notice. "WHAT!?!" I shouted again, only to earn another annoyed look from the librarian, who promptly turned her nose at me and walked away. I guess that was a perk from being with the Overseer, nobody wanted to mess with you.

"It's for the best. Without us, all of these seditious thoughts will be brought down, and our vault will go back to normal. Happy, and blissfully ignorant of America's faults." She said matter of factly. Her self confidence was starting to piss me off.

"Yeah, I can understand that, but why you? You could just forget this ever happened and live your life in ignorance yourself?! And I sure as hell could! I've already been doing it for three years!" I was just a step away from slamming my fist down on the table. Librarian's scorn be damned!

"First, no, I can't. I'll never be the same. Second, have you looked at your progress and personality testings for the last three years? Every score of yours has been dropping. The charts say you'll probably be unstable by the end of the year. And all of this started when you gained access to the information that... Doesn't matter any more. So, we're leaving now. You have three hours. Meet me at the door on the ground level. Don't talk to anyone, I'll take care of the excuses as to why were gone." She rose from the chair and took her stack of books with her. Now I could understand what she'd been doing. She'd been finding all of the books with informaqtion that could have been considered seditious. [censored]. [censored] [censored] [censored]. She meant it. If I didn't leave who knew what she'd do.

Meh, a voice in my head said, not like we ever really liked it here. Maybe it was right. Wait, hell no it wasn't! I'd just started to like it here! What about Chef, and Mr. Handy? What about Mom and Dad!? Hell, I'd even miss Carmine! Even DeGrasse, the school bully who'd thrown me down a flight of stairs! This was my home! And, and... it svcked. I stopped fighting. I layed my head down on the table for a few minutes. What the hell was going on...? Then I rose from the table, accidentally knocking a book onto the floor. It was a manual on survival in predicted wastland conditions. I took it, then walked out of the library. Three hours wasn't a lot of time to get my stuff together.

* * *

Nothing like leaving everything you know and love behind to make you realize how little you knew and loved. I mean, I'd really didn't want to leave my dad, or my mom, or Chef, but that was about it on a list of people who I thought would even notice I'd be gone. Oh well. I packed my meager belongings in a small rucksack. A couple BB pellets, about thirty stimpacks (I'd always cleared out the ones in the First Aid boxes. They'd be replaced by the seemingly endless supply from the Infirmary anyways, and I let the blame fall on jerks who deserved it.), a few shots of Med-X, a couple of bobbypins, a 'Vigilante' Comic book, and a picture of my mom and me as a baby. That was all I had. Next to that lay a baseball bat, which I planned on taking. I mean, who knew what we'd find out there?

I found a bottle of Wonderglue, and two rolls of Ducttape, and added them to my bag. The I thought about it for a second, and pulled out the wonderglue and one of the rolls of Duct tape and pulled off my Utility suit. I grabbed a bunch of metal scrap that was lying around and got to work aggumenting my suit. When I was done, I looked at it and grinned proudly. I wasn't sure how well it'd block bullets, but it definantly looked a good deal more badass. I donned my newly awesome armor and slung my pack over one shoulder, grabbed my bat from where it lay, and started up to ground floor.


I've told you before that Vault 48 was big, but I was just beginning to truely appreciate just how big. And by appreciate I mean start sweating because of it as I ran to catch my appointment with the Overseer. Or not Overseer. What the hell was I supposed to call her now? Overseers didn't retire, they normally just died. Meh, I'd ask later. I arrived at the massive steel gear door about three minutes before three hours was up, and still was met with a familiar greeting. I ignored it only because of how huge that gear was. I mean, holy [censored], did they want to block a nuclear missile directly? Oh, right. They did.

"You're late." She said, tossing me a pistol, looking more tough than I would have ever imagined in her fully decked out pre war security armor. Way to make me feel insecure about my armor. The pistol landing in my arms was rather supprising, and I just stood and stared at her for a few seconds.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked, flipping the pistol around in my hands, looking over its worn metal and grip.

She rolled her eyes. "You know, point and shoot? It's really not hard." She mimed out the actions of aiming and pulling the trigger for me.

"Yeah, I caught that, but why the hell are you giving it to me? I've never really used one before." I explained, still examining the pistol. Seemed like a 9mm. Judging by the size of the hole. Okay, I have no idea what type of gun I was holding.

This seemed to catch her by suprise. "Really? I thought parents all taught their kids?"

"Not mine. They were more pasifists. Peaceful protest and all." I said, putting the pistol into my bag.

"Hippies..." She murmered under her breath. "Okay, let's get rolling!" She said excitedly as she started working at the consoles that controlled that massive gear. Holy [censored]. I still couldn't get over just how massive it was.

"Wait, so what did you tell everybody? About us leaving?" I questioned. This I at least wanted to hear, I couldn't imagine anything that would explain both of us dissapearing so suddenly.

"Thats obvious. I just hacked into the reactor subframe and manipulated the cameras to show us meeting down there to have some... advlt fun... then slipping and falling into the magma lake." She blushed as she said advlt fun. Cute. Wait what?

"You did what?!" I shouted again. "You made it seem like we were, um... well..." I stopped talking. Actually that seemed like a pretty awesome note to leave on. Leaving my family and friends thinking that I was [censored] the most powerful woman in the vault. Not to mention making everyone else jelous.

As I muttered to myself she finished up with the controls and pulled a lever, and the gear started to pull back, then was rolled aside by the most powerful hydrolic machinery I'd ever seen. Once again, Holy [censored]. "Ok, I've rigged up the sensors so that as long as the door isn't opened for more than ten minutes, it won't register it as ever being oppened. Are you ready?" She asked, as she put a pistol into a holster on her side, then shouldered a rifle.

"Meh. I guess." I said, as I walked out into that cold, damp, rock cavern, where fifty feet away there was a broken and battered wooden door with light streaming through it. I stepped out of the Vault, not knowing what lay ahead, not knowing where we were going, or even really why. My last thoughts as we both put our hands on that wooden door handle, even as the gigantic gear pulled into place behind us, was:

'I need to be more assertive,'

Vault 48 chapter 2

by ~kaibomb

The first thing I noticed was how brilliantly bright it was outside the cold damp recesses of the vault, how the light played on my skin and enveloped me in warmth. The second thing I noticed was how the brilliant light had blinded me. The Overseer, or um... retired Overseer, seemed to be suffering the same thing. No matter how many guns she was packing, or how thick her armor was, she hadn't donned her helmet, and was thusly blinded by the light of the sun.

Wait a second. What was her name? Did I just really escape from my home that I loved with someone whose name I couldn't even recall? All my life, from classes to job, we'd always just called her 'the Overseer's Daughter' or later 'the Overseer', but that was it. I don't think anybody ever even tried to get aquainted with her. Huh.

When my vision cleared I looked around, and my jaw dropped. I'd seen pictures, but what I saw of the Outside was more astonishing than I ever could have imagined. I bet a lot of vault dwellers say that when they get topside. I shook my head and went for a second look. It stretched in all directions for as far as I could see, with he exception of behind us, because I couldn't see over the hill our vault was built into. I bet it went forever in that direction too. The best thing was looking up. For a second I thought that I would drift off, into that beautiful blue sky, dotted by grey and white clouds. There were no ceilings, no walls, no boundaries. I felt free for the first time in my life. While I'd found comfort in the familiar walls that kept me safe in the vault, it couldn't compare to what I felt now. This feeling of awe, and wonder at how infinite the world seemed. There were mountains to the far west, buildings rose on the southern horizon, in the east I could already see a river and a few small structures near it. A smile graced my face, simply arising without my summons, showing just how happy I was to see this world. This wonderful world where anything could happen, where there were no limits. I turned to the former Overseer to see that she wasn't as in awe as I had been.

No, she was quite busy actually. Throwing up. I felt bad for the dried out and near dead looking bush she'd picked as a target. She was on her hands and knees as she gave our new world another liter of liquid. I don't think it appreciated it.

"The sky..." She moaned, as she rose from her position on the ground, "Oh god... It's so... Big..." She trailed off as she tried not too look up. I guess I was going to have to find someone else to share the wonders of this new wide world with. She wiped her mouth with the back of a gloved fist.

"You okay?" I asked as I patted her on the back. She shoved my hand off.

"Yeah. Just some... um... reverse vertigo? I don't know what to call it." She said as her gaze began to rise upwards again. When her head got to about 45 degrees she snapped it back down and clenched her eyes shut. "Yes.... Definantly reverse vertigo."

I patter her back again as I laughed. We were outside in a world of oppertunity and danger, with radiation and who knows what around every corner, and she was afraid of the most beautiful thing here. Figures. "So, where do you think we should head now that were out?" I said, sitting down on a rock next to the wooden door.

That got her attention. "Oh, right!" She pulled a map out of her own vault 48 backpack. The shiny plastic made me feel a little selfconcious about my own leather and nylon rucksack. "Okay, so this map says that we're right about... here!" She pointed to a small dot on the map marked with a huge vault tec vault emblem she must have drawn herself. "So we should go to... to... Here!" she pointed at a small dot on the map labled, New Houston.

"And which direction is that?" I asked. I looked at the map without really paying attention. Maps weren't my strongpoint.

"Um... it looks like its to the east. I heard that New Houstons defences were really strong! Maybe the bombs didn't even hit there!" There was a strange look in her eyes. A sort of sparkle. And the way she spoke... she seemed, happy. Weird. My thoughts were interrupted by a synchronized beep on my Pipboy as well as hers. We shared a confused glance, then both looked down at our Pip boys. Looking at the screen, I saw that it had bounced to, 'World Map' mode, and I saw two square location markers, one a little gear marked 'Vault 48' and another square, this one with a dash through it, that was marked 'New, New Houston'. Wait what? Had it picked this up from the conversation we'd just had? And why was it called 'New, New Houston'?

"Umm, did your Map just get a new Icon?" I asked her as she stood silently at the screen. She shook herself out of her shocked silence and nodded. "Huh. Well, I guess these things are a little more advanced than I'd given it credit for. I guess it'll be pretty useful out here in the Wasteland." At the word 'Wasteland' both Pipboys beeped again. I checked the screen, and sure enough, it had done something weird again. A new note had been added to my Misc. Section.









These words ran across the screen as I scrolled though, and as I reached the bottom, a new note added itself. I activated it, and was supprised when a womans Electronicly gargled voice started to play from my speakers.

"Howdy! This is your Pipboy speaking! Now, you might be supprised as to why I'm talking, so I'll tell you! This Pip boy has been programmed with the COWPOKE WASTER Package from vault tec itself! That means I'll be able to help you on your journey through the wasteland, by telling you things such as how thirsty you are and how long you can go without eating, too the effects you are suffering because of extra radiation or sleep deprivation! Isn't that neat!? Now, as some of you might know, the wasteland isn't a good place! Probably! So, To help you out, this Pipboy has also been equipped with a HOSTILEDEFMOD-E.F.S.. This nifty piece of tech can tell you what's friendly and what's not in the wasteland, so remember 'Green, keep it clean; Red it's dead!'. This Pipboy has also been equipped with V.A.T.S., that's a system that will help you speed up your reflexes and get your attacks where they need to go! Now get out there and giddyup cowboy!"

The tape ended. What? "Uh... are you still there?" I said into my Pipboy as the former Overseer was tapping on hers, skipping over the voice telling her about all the new features. She looked like she had some idea as to what all of this was.

"Yes." A robotic Voice rang out of my Pipboy. It didn't seem to be the woman from earlier, instead it sounded like a robot. Kind of like the Mr.Handy that worked in the Cafe.

"Um... It's kind of freaking me out to talk to you... uh, what are you?" I said softly into the Pipboy.

"Acknowlaged. Verbal Functions Disabling." She said, then there was a beep, and I looked at my pip boy screen. There were her words, typed out on the screen instead of being spoken. It wan't what I'd meant, but heck, it was easier this way anyways.



"Uh... Ok..." This was weird. If my Pipboy could talk, why hadn't it done so before? Why did nobody tell me about this? Oh well. Another mystery. "So... What's this Vats thing?" I said, voice wavering but gaining strength. The former Overseer sat on a rock near me tapping madly at her Pipboy.



Wow. So not only could my pip boy talk now, but it also could read my mind. I was glancing around for things to target, when I found myself looking at a small compass. Inside of my eyes. I jumped to my feet, startled only to find that the compass followed my eyes, seeming to be locked within them. There was a green tab mark where the... damn it, I really need to get her name... former Overseer sat. I guess that was the HOSTILEDEFMOD-E.F.S.. Bleah. So weird. I decided to try V.A.T.S.ing on the former Overseer, and it brought up lots of statistics, like how likely I was to hit, and how much damage the hit would do, all within the confines of my eyes! Geez, this was going to be take a bit of getting used to.

I stared at her for a while from the confines of V.A.T.S., taking in the whole of her beauty again. Untill I noticed her start to blink. And then continue to do so for the next two minutes. I quickly broke out of V.A.T.S. and stared down at my Pipboy in amazement. Now, I'd known that this thing had some pretty amazing effects, like how it had always know just what was in my pockets or bags and where, and how it always knew my orientation, without help from a orbiting satalite, but slowing down time? Talking to me? Those weren't standards, at least not while we were in the vault. I looked back up to the former Overseer.

"Hey, does your Pipboy have V.A.T.S.?" I asked. She glanced me, then back to her Pipboy, then nodded. "Go ahead and try it out. Not the shooting part, but just activate it." She gave me a weird look, but then quickly went back to her Pipboy and did what I could only guess was looking at the controls for it.

She stared at me for about three seconds, staying stock still, then suddenly a burst of emotion ripped across her face. She was smiling so hard MY jaws started to hurt.

"That's amazing!" She gasped, trying to spend equal time looking to her Pipboy in admiration and back to me. "When do you think they put this in? Why didn't they have it in the vault?" I could only shrug. I really had no Idea. Which is weird. I'm no Pipboy technition or anything, but I'd had more than my share of experiences watching broken ones get fixed, since my Dad was one, and in all the lectures and speeches he'd given about the ingenuity and greatness of the humble Pipboy, He'd never mentioned this, not even once.

It was right about then a scream echoed out across the wasteland. It was horrible, a scream one could only issue if you knew that you wouldn't ever be able to again. The scream of a person who knew they were burnt, crispy, wasteland toast. I gave a quick glance to the Overseer (This is starting to drive me crazy, just what was her name?! I must have heard it at least once!), who nodded as she slung her pack over her shoulder and brought her rifle to firing position, and began to run towards the sound of the scream. I snatched up my bat from where I'd left it and bolted after her.

We dashed towards an abandoned farmhouse, and as we turned a corner around the barn, we saw what had issued forth the scream. Splayed out against the barn there was a woman, or I should say most of a woman, as most of her head and upper torso was busy redecorating the side of the barn. Just adjacent to her was a man nearly my height, covered in makeshift armor from head to toe, all made from kitchen utinsils, and with a crown to match. What?

"ALL HAIL THE SPOON KING!" He shouted as he spun his worn and broken shotgun to bear on us. His fingers clicked down on the trigger and the gun exploded, ripping the Spoon king's fingers and thumb from his arm. He looked down to his hand with a puzzled expression on his face, then started smiling and laughing as he tore a spoon from his garmets and rushed towards us. Not a good sign.

"ALL HAIL THE SPOON KING!" He echoed himself as the former Overseer began to raise her rifle to head level, setting up a shot. She was fast. I was faster. In the blink of an eye I was rushing towards the Spoon king as he ran toward us, knocking his... weapon... from his grip, then bringing the butt of my bat down on his crazy head. There was a sickening crack as I did so, but it didn't compare to the thud that his head made as I caved it in with the bat. Crazy ass Spoon King.

I panted as I stood there, end of the bat still laying amidst his gray matter, clutching the handle harder than I ever had before. I took a few seconds to calm myself then turned around, whipping the bat up so that it was braced against my shoulder, then putting on a grin so that I'd look cool. Unfortunantly cool didn't really matter to the former Overseer, who was for the second time in half an hour, spilling her guts out on an innocent bush. I walked towards her, and put a hand on her shoulder. This time she didn't brush it off. After a few good minutes, she rose and put her hand over my own.

"Sorry about that." She said softly. "I thought I'd like shooting, but... maybe I was a little overconfident in my ability to handle... gore. That was NOT how the radroach I shot went down." I laughed. So naturally, not only was she afraid of the sky, but she was a trigger happy hemophobe. I patted her on the back once more then turned my attention back to the two dead we had on our hands. Upon closer inspection, the woman who lay against the barn's clothing looked suspiciously like the Spoon king's.

My Pipboy displayed. Now THAT, was creepy. Probably right though. I started to go through their pockets and bags. On the Spoon king I found roughly what I'd expected, a [censored] ton of spoons, along with a couple of extra shells for his now destroyed shotgun. His queen however, had much better loot. She had ten more shotgun shells (of a different variety of her king's.), a old military knife, a gold necklace, a holotape, and a small submachine gun with over twenty rounds to match! I handed the submachine gun over to the former Overseer, and-- Screw this, I'm finding out her name.

"Hey, what's your name?" She looked at me like I was an idiot. Not that I really wasn't nor did I not deserve the look for forgetting her name. Then she sighed and said, "Amber. Amber Goldenrod."

Huh. Well, that's nice to know. "Nice to meet you Amber." I extended my hand, which she took and shook with all of the grace of a politician. Which she was, to be fair. That didn't stop her from looking at her palms in utter horror as she realized that I'd been sticking my hands through the Spoon King's pockets. I just kept laughing.

"And what's your name?" She said in return, as she wiped her hand off on her security combat armor. That I hadn't expected. Didn't she know my name? No, I guess she'd only known my last, which was to be expected. My name got mentioned often enough as parents complained about my teaching techniques.

"I'm Silver. Silver Slate Gray." She smiled at me, I smiled back. Weird. I finnaly felt comfortable around a girl, and it was only after I'd turned someone's head into jelly and pickpocketed his girlfriends corpse. Speaking of which, I looked at the holotape in my hand, then pressed play.

-Hello- Her voice was uneven and full of obvious fear. - I doubt anybody will ever listen to this, but if they do, I want you to know what happened to me. Last week I was set upon by raiders, who, well... [censored] me. A lot.- I could hear her shudder through the tape. - Anyways, a man by the name of the Spoon king came along and saved me, pasting all the raiders. Or at least that's what I'd thought. Oh, here he comes-- The tape cut off. I turned to say something to Amber, but then it started up again. -Ok, part two, so he saved me and all, but he's a total wackjob. I think he's only letting me live as long as he think's I'm his spoon queen. I shudder to think what would happen if he found out otherwise. He's been shooting up with ungodly amouts of Med-X. I'm scared.-

-It's been two days since that first recording, and he's gone to hell. He just keeps doing more and more Med-X, but so long he still hasn't crashed, so how am I supposed to get away?-

-Four days since that last recording. I'm done with this. I'm gonna make a run for it this afternoon, as he's shooting himself up. I think that if this dose doesn't kill him nothing will, so it's now or never. This is Demi Lovegood, signing off. Goodbye world. Or not.-

The recording finnaly cut off. Looks like we'd found her just as she'd tried to make her escape, but failed. If only we'd come sooner. Damn it. DAMN IT. I slammed my fist against the barn. I hadn't felt any pity just a second ago, but now I was on the edge of tears. What the hell kind of a monster would do this to a woman? I sighed. I guess the type of monster that this wasteland specialized in. I looked back to Amber, who was just staring off into the distance, lost in thought. A bit of color had faded from her face. I decided to check inside the barn. It was even more rewarding than their pockets had been. I found a shotgun that matched the shells I'd found in Demi's pockets. I guess she took it so that he couldn't use it against her. Didn't do her much good. I found at least twenty empty containers of Med-X, but only two that actually had any left. Looking around the barn, I spotted a glint of metal from under a pile of rotting hay. As I moved the hay aside, I realized that it was a safe built into the floor. Since none of the two had had they key, I guessed that this wasn't either of theirs. Heck, it could have been there since before the war. I dug out a lockpick from one of my utility uniforms countless pockets, and got to work. It took me the better part of a half hour, but was plenty rewarding. I found several rounds of pistol ammunition, and a whopping fifty shells for the shotgun I'd recently aquired. Aside from that, there were a few stacks of bills, which I took, and a book on heavy weapons, which I also took. Never knew when I'd have to understand ordinance heavier than I was, right?

I walked outside to find Amber sitting up against the barn, facing away from our friend the corpse and her captor.

"What did you find?" She asked, voice struggling to ignore or forget what she'd just heard. The wasteland really was getting to her. And me. Mostly her though. I hoped.

"Well, I found a kickass shotgun, some kickass bullets, and a book on kickass weapons." I tossed the half empty clip of pistol ammuntion at her. "I'm going to try to find out how to use this shotgun." I grinned at her, but she shrugged away, looking at the ground between her feet. If spoon royalty didn't kill us, I wasn't sure she'd last much longer anyways. I could only hope. I raised the shotgun up and looked down the sights at another helpless bush. I pulled the trigger, then looked down in confusion as nothing happened. I heard a laugh from off to my side.

"You really never were taught how to shoot, were you?" She rose off the ground and started towards me, leaving her gear where she'd sat.

"Nope. The only thing I've ever shot was an electic nail gun. Kind of. Okay, I'd only been pulling the trigger while someone else aimed it, but same concept, right?" More laughter. Wow, way to make a guy feel self confident.

"No, There's a little more too it to pulling the trigger." She got to me and lifted the shotgun from my hands and started explaining the weapon and how it worked. She explained about the saftey (A feature I was a bit suprised to find on a murder machine), how to hold it, not to hold it anywere fragile bones because it would break them like a hammer, and etcetera. She really got into it, losing herself in the joy of handling and explaining a firearm. I guess I'd found a way to keep her from losing her mind to the wasteland: Get more guns. From the fact that even a guy like the Spoon king had gotten his hands on more than one, I was pretty sure it couldn't be too hard. When she finished explaining, I was feeling pretty confident that I could hit anything with this baby. I swung the shotgun up to my shoulder, bracing it and myself, then flicked off the saftey and looked down the barrel from a few inches away. Amber had informed me that if the gun had actually fired when I had been holding it before, I probably would have lost the eye. The I fired, twice in rapid succession, muzzle flashing, and gunshot booming over the valley we were in. Lowering the shotgun to inspect my target, I was more than a little dissapointed to find that all of my shots had missed by a wider margin than I'd ever be willing to bet my life on, so I handed it back to Amber, who was laughing so hard I think she might have been crying a bit. I couldn't stop my face to turning a bit red with anger.

"Ready to go? Again?" I said to her as she wiped a small tear from her eye. She smiled at me and nodded an afirmitive. I motioned to her to wait a second and walked over to where Demi lay in deaths embrace and crossed her arms over her chest and pulled a blanket I'd found in the barn over her. It was a small comfort, and not nearly what she deserved, but it made me feel a bit better about what we'd just been through. And so we both picked up our gear and started off towards New New Houston.

* * *

"You see, Houston was a old city that had been around since... probably 1890s," Amber explained," But during the war with brazil, it took a incindiary missile to the heart. The people had evacuated in time, but they hadn't been able to stop the missile from destroying the city itself. So the people of Houston took it upon themselves to build a greater city, one that would dwarf the old, and signal a form of futility for our enemies, that no matter how we were crushed, we would come back stronger. Better. I'd heard the city itself was one of the most advanced of it's time, but that was before the bombs fell. It was pretty big, so I'm sure it was hit."

"Well, I knew that. I am a history teacher, remember?" I said to her, turning back to look at her as we walked along a lonly road in the middle of a grassy plain. We'd followed the valley we had been in and just kept going until we'd wound up on this road that our compasses informed us was going straight to our destination.

She blushed a little, probably having forgotten in her excitement about the city. "Yes, Of course I know that!" She regained her dignified tone. "But here's what I'd be willing to bet you didn't know. Nobody did. With the exception of the Overseers of the Texas area. The entire city of New Houston was built to be able to GO UNDERGROUND!" I spun to look at her, my eyes widening. "That's right, the entire city! Well, the big buildings at least. Under any case or circumstance where the city was in jeopardy, the buildings were to go underground and not come back up until the danger subsided." Her face darkened a bit, looking down at the ground and biting her lip. "The flaw to such a system was that when the bombs hit, there was enough radiation for it to perceived as a continued threat. Sure, they'd built tunnels to help evacuate the citizens in case they became trapped by radiation, but there was a massive flaw in the plan. The tunnels were collapsed by the bomb. So the radiation sealed the city, and the bomb damned the citizens."

I whistled. That was an impressive feat. Stinks to know it had been undone by such a stupid flaw though. Still, who knows what could still be there, untouched by the wastes after all this time? It was a fantasy worth daydreaming about, that's for sure. "So is that why we're going there? To find this underground city?"

"Yes. More or less." She tilted an eyebrow, trying to think about how to word her plans. "I'm not sure if we really would be able to get in, or raise the city, but if we can it'll truly be amazing, that's for sure. Otherwise we can just keep traveling the wastes. Speaking of which, this hasn't been much of a wasteland so far. Grass as far as the eye can see." She said as she surveyed the surrounding grassland.

"Yeah. I guess a hundred and nintey years is enough for plants to start growing again. At least this grass." A darker thought came into my mind. "Actually, I think we should stay closer to the middle of the road. Who knows what could be hiding in grass this tall." I started to drift towards the middle of the road, pulling Amber with me. "Just in case." We both kept walking, silently down the road for another hour. I checked my Pipboy for the time, and while it read fifteen minutes before five, the sun didn't look like it planned on going down any time soon. More importantly, it appeared as though while I wasn't paying attention, my Pipboy had picked up a radio frequency. I clicked it on, not really knowing what to expect. I knew that before the war, radios had been used for relaying messages and whatnot, and several emergency frequences had been established to warn people of impending threats to America and its citizens, so I pretty much expected people would be using it to communicate, or at least give one sided messages.

What I did not expect was the smooth jazz. Amber gave me a sideways glance as she speed her pace up to get a few feet in front of me. The jazz was... nice. It was soothing, and much different from the rambunctious brass of the pre-war American broadcasts and music we'd had back in the vault. I felt vaguely as though I was going to fall asleep on my feet. That got shaken out of my head as a voice boomed onto the radio, interupting the smooth jazz.

"Heeeelloo Wasteland! This is your humble disc jockey, your one man band and entertainer, your source of pure and unbiased news throughout the wastes, General Lee Kickass!"

I see what he did there.

"So, ready for your favorite part of the day? That's right, it's time for me to me to preach about the great country of pre-war America, and how greatful you should be for existing int the same dimension as it! Oh wait, news just in; this isn't [censored] Enclave radio. Now it's time for the news. To all of you out there near Sucrosecountry, stay the HELL OUT OF THERE. There have been raiders pouring of of there for years, like it's their base, and I know what you're sayin' 'But General, we already know that!', but calm down a tick, cause [censored]'s about to get serious. Raiders have stopped pouring out of that god forsaken town, only to be replaced by Theirshan Mercs. They've taken the town for their own, and have been kidnapping and selling anybody who comes within ten miles of the place. In other news, it seems that somebody has taken care of the Corpse stalker problem up in Scrappington... but we haven't heard from anybody in the town for days. The man who claims to have taken care of the Corpse stalkers says they were all fine and well when he left about a week ago, but since then we haven't seen anything out of that damned town. Not a single caravan has gone through it... and come out. That's all for now my babies! Remember not to trust Theirshans, not to let Taurens Hug you, and if you're passing by Scrappington, check it out, but be careful." Music resumed pooring out of the Pipboy, a exciting and captivating type I later learned was called 'Rock and Roll'.

I looked to Amber, who looked back to me, both of us confused. This wasn't what we thought we'd find out here. If there was a civilization this... organized, then they would have already woken up all the vaults, right?

"What do you think?" I asked her, then tripped over a bit of debris in the road and faceplanted in the asphalt. I rolled over onto my back, then rubbed my head and turned my gaze towards what had tripped me. A skeleton. [censored]. Amber looked to me and paled, unholstering her rifle and putting it in the crook of her shoulder. There was a blip on her Pipboy, and she glanced at it, then turned back to what was ahead of us, staring intently.

"I think we just found Scrappington."

* * *

I spun around and pulled my bat from it's strap in what might have been the lamest looking maneuver in all of history, but it worked, and that was all that mattered. Okay, it worked well enough. Okay, so I might have fallen a bit, but that doesn't matter. As I pulled my bat back into a fighting position, I got my first glance at what we were facing, and I nearly fell on my ass again.

Standing only twenty feet from us, there was a medium sized figure wearing a shiny black armor that looked like it had been taken directly off of an army of ants from hell. The helmet itself was particularly unnerving, the huge yellow gray eyepieces completely covering its face with the exception of where his mouth and nose would have been. In its hands was a gray metal boxy thing, shaped roughly like a gun, with a handle and stock, but no barrel; and it was aimed right at us. As I saw a microfusion cell lodged into the back of the boxy length of metal, I realized what it was.

"Careful, he's got a laser rifle!" I shouted, my eye's never leaving our opponent. I didn't need to see Amber's face to know how she'd reacted.

"No [censored], Sherlock." I could practically hear her eyes rolling. Of course she knew what it was, she was a gun fanatic, and we'd had specs on all types of weapons back in the vault. Hell, she'd probably fired a few! I was about to make a witty retort (Which would probably end up sounding like, 'well... shut up!') when the armored laser rifle opperator shouted something out.

"This is Weapons Specialist Sienna Auro of the Enclave, lower your weapons and surrender!" That was a female voice. [censored]. I bet she'd be pissed about that 'he's got a laser rifle' thing. Stupid wasteland.

"Negative! You are in possession of Vault 48 Omega level equipment, and as former Overseer, I command you to stand down!" Wait, whaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Vault equipment? Since when did we have any kickass gear? The blacked armored Enclave member looked a little shocked at that, at least as much as I could tell while she was wearing that armor.

"Uh, what are you both talking about?" I said. I felt stupid, but I'd be damned if I let this conversation go any further without me having any idea what they were talking about. Amber was the first to respond to my inquirey.

"She's wearing Power armor!" That helps. "It looks like the model we have in the vault, with a few modifications, but still ours. We had rooms and rooms full of them back in 48, but they weren't as... scary. I'm not supprised you don't know about it, it was on a need to know basis." Why does nobody tell me about cool stuff? Oh right, because I'm just a teacher. Was a teacher. Same difference.

The Weapons specialist shifted in her armor, turning her head back and forth to look at us. "Did you say Vault 48? The lost Vault?" I glanced to Amber. Since when were we lost? "I propose a amstice." Amber gritted her teeth, and looked like she was about to say otherwise, but I got there first.

"Agreed. How about we all lower our weapons on three?" I asked.

"Negative," She replied. "You have a bat, it wouldn't help me for you to just lower it. You throw you're bat to the side of the road, and then me and her can lower our weapons on three." Once again, Amber started to say something, but I acted faster. Like hell did I want to fight against someone we could reason with. I threw my bat to the side of the road, it clattered and rolled all the way to the high grass, where it stoped after pushing a few stalks down. "One... Two... Lower your weapons." They both did. Hurray for diplomacy.

Unfortunantly just as they did, a hairy, evil-looking, lanky creature burst from the grass. It looked like somebody had stretched out a chimpanze, then taught it how to give evil eyes and gave it huge ass claws and teeth to match. I had no idea how it chewed without slashing up its mouth. I also had no idea why these were the thoughts coming through my head as I flew back into the grass opposite where it had burst from, propelled by a blow from one of it's long arms. Even as long as fragile as they looked, they packed one hell of a punch. I crunched through the grass, rolling up onto my feet with the momentum from the blow, then running back out to the road to find our Enclave friend on the ground, and Amber firing her rifle into it's back as it clawed at her armor ineffectivly. Damn it, why couldn't I look bad ass when anybody was watching? I didn't have a weapon, so I pulled out the spoon from the Spoon King's pockets and jumped on the thing, pulling it to the ground, then proceeded to ram the spoon all the way through the back of it's head and out one of it's front eye sockets. I guess even though they could suvive a back full of bullets, their heads were pretty soft. I rose up off of the creature, panting, to find both our new Enclave friend and Amber staring at me.

"What?" I said.

"You're an idiot." They mirrored each other's speech. Great. Now Amber had a new friend, and they both thought I was a moron.

* * *

"So why are you here?" Amber questioned as she sat at a scrap metal table, made from what appeared to be the metal from the wing of an airplane. We had relocated to a... cafe? That's good enough to describe it. It was some sort of resturaunt, with several tables and a fridge, and what seemed to be a jury-rigged grill. Something inside of me knew that it wasn't in any way the last thing like that I'd see in the wastes.

After we'd brushed off most of the blood from our armor (Or in my case, tough clothing. Though if we were going to be fighting any more of those things, I wanted to get some armor!) Sienna had insisted on ashing the corpse with her laser rifle. Apparently where there was one of those things, there were bound to be more, especially since they were attracted to blood and the smell of fear. I really didn't know what she'd meant by that. After the beast was a pile of smoldering vaporized dust, we'd continued into town, and told her our story; of escaping the vault, killing the Spoon King, and then finding her. Not a long story.

"Well, about two weeks ago, I was injured pretty damned badly. Took a shotgun to the chest, and was nearly dying. So, my unit did the best they could to patch me up, then left me with some Enclave supporters so I could get my feet back under me, and continued with their directive." She spoke in a sad tone of voice, like she never expected to see her unit again, sitting opposite Amber and I at the makeshift table, drinking a Sunset Sarsparilla. "I honestly don't expect to see them again." Nailed it. "But that isn't going to stop me from looking. I'd heard they had come into this town about a week and a half ago, but when I got here this morning, there wasn't a person in sight." She sighed, and looked down at her helmet which lay next to her.

Without the helmet she was pretty smokin'. I mean, she wasn't Amber or anything, but this was the type I could have dreams about shacking up with without having to tell myself it couldn't happen later. She had jet black hair, cut short, but not in a military fashion, just hanging lose at a length of about four inches. I guess there wasn't much point of cutting your hair if you wore a helmet all the time anyways. Her face was nice too, it wasn't sharp like Amber's or Carmine's, but softer and more... homely? I don't know. Geez, second woman I see in the wastes (With a head.) and I was already starting to daydream about her.

"So how did you, you know, get back on your feet if you'd been shot? Two weeks isn't exactly a lot of time to heal." I asked. I hoped I didn't end up looking stupid, not having any medical experience at all. I was just basing this off how long it took me to heal a skinned knee.

"Well, the couple who they'd left me with were Prospectors, scavengers essentially, and they were searching around a hospital the day after I had been left behind, when they found a fully functioning Auto-Doc." She smiled as she mentioned the couple, then it fell off and she regained her poker face as she told the rest of her tale. "They were nice enough to let me use it for free before selling it off to the highest bidder. So, with my injuries healed, I went off to find my unit."

She glanced at the two of us, then turned back to her drink. "You're actually the first two people I've seen since them."

"So what is all of this stuff about a lost vault?" Amber asked, taking a sip of her Nuka Cola. There had been a vending machine in the corner, and with a bit of um... Crowbar Charisma, I'd convinced it to give us a bit of a discount on the two century old soft drinks and added the crowbar to my growing rupsack of wonders. So while they got their 'Mainstream' drinks, I was adventerous and got a bottle of Professor Halepenio. It tasted like burning, but, you know, the good kind.

"So you guys really don't know anything about the Enclave?" She gave us worried looks, but then explained. "You see, America's pre-war military decided that if war was comming, they wanted a few vaults to themselves, so that they would survive and continue on with American legend even if America herself didn't. They got three real vaults, but one didn't have a name, the other nobody cares to remember, because they don't want to admit that we came from a vault, and then there's the vault we never found. Vault 48." Amber and I looked at each other with confused expressions then turned back to our black haired friend.

She sighed, then continued. "Let me guess, you guys are really patriotic in your vault? Most of your education is spent praising America? Daily announcements about how great it was?" We nodded together. "Well, that's the same as the other vaults. The fact you had power armor in yours is just further evidence that it was origionally military. But, we never found your vault, and all data of it was lost, which is why you were never contacted to open your vault." That made since. A lot of sense. It was discomforting to know it in truth. Why hadn't our vault been opened? Why had they lost the data that showed where we were? Why the hell couldn't I have kickass armor? I looked towards my old, blood stained bat and let out a sigh. For a while, we just sat there and drank.

"So, you said you just got here this morning?" Amber's voice broke the silence.

"Yeah, why?" She responded, rolling around her empty Cola bottle on the table with a finger.

"Have you checked it out at all?"

"No, not really." She stopped rolling the bottle and grinned wryly up at us. "I try to not make it a habit to wander around ghost towns."

"Why?" Amber inquired. I could guess. Tribals out here must all be afraid of ghost.

She rolled her eyes at us, but then the grin slid off of her face. "Oh. Right. I keep forgetting that you're fresh out of a vault. Well, it's not ghosts. I was actually trying to make a joke about that." Swing and a miss. "You see, the wasteland isn't exactly a friendly place, so when you see a town that had people living in it, and they aren't there any more, it's likely that something made them that way. Slavers, Corpsestalkers, et cetera. Either way, it's generally best to avoid them. I was just popping in here to make sure there wasn't anybody left, and then was leaving as I found you guys."

I looked around at the everly emptier looking cafe, then glanced out a window at darker clouds that were rolling in. "Uh, so what should we do now?"

She saw where my gaze fell and turned to examine the clouds for herself. She frowned at the dark grey of the oncoming clouds, and turned back to us. "I'd suggest we get out of here. Best to leave a town like this in the dust. If you leave now, you might be able to find a shack to weather this storm out in." She gave me a confused look, I guess the shock on my face was pretty visible.

"You're not comming with us?" She shook her head, then stopped, looked pensive and asked another question.

"Where are you headed?"

"New Houston." Amber and I awnsered at the same time.

Sienna smiled again. "I'm heading all the way to the Enclave's High Plain outpost, but that's on my way. I guess I'll travel with you until then. If you'll have me, of course."

Amber grinned at me and I grinned right back. It'd be nice to have another companion on the road, especially if there were more Corpse stalkers any where nearby. Amber replied with genuine happyness in her voice, instead of her general 'Diplomat's' voice. "We'd be happy too."

Thunder rolled across the fields of grass outside, followed by a nearly solid wall of rain. When it rained in Texas, it poured. I rose from my sitting position at the table, picking up my empty drink and tossing it into a trashcan. Though the way the rest of the town looked, it seemed like proper ediquet would have been to through it onto the floor.

"Do you really think we should head out now? Seems like one hell of a storm out there..." Amber and I looked at her, she was our source of knowlage about the outside world. She bit at her lip pensivly.

"It is a pretty bad storm..." More thunder boomed outside, much closer this time, and Amber jumped in suprise at the percussion. "We could stay here. But I don't know what happened here. At least one of us should stay alert at all times, and if we end up sleeping, we'll have to do it in shifts." Was she really this afraid of a ghost town? Then I remembered DJ Kickass's message; this town had been full of people under a week ago.

It only took a few hours to clear out the cafe and board up the windows and doors with tables. The storm outside was going from bad to worse, blue white lightning danced around the city, slashing through the air and striking the ground and buildings around us, while the rain was only getting thicker and heavier. The last rays of sun that had flashed through the cloud cover were quick to get the hell out of there as night fell. Amber and Sienna had scrounged up two matresses. The things were everywhere on the upper levels they'd said, however there wasn't a blanket in sight. Stupid wasteland. It wasn't until I sat down to take the first watch that I realized how tired I was. Turns out that bashing someone's brains in, listening to a person's last words, walking several miles, and then running a monster's brain through with a sharpened spoon really wears a guy out. So, as my shift neared it's end, Amber's Pipboy alarm (Which was actually pretty quiet compared to mine. Was there a volume control somewhere that nobody had told me about?) woke her up and she walked over to me, tapped my shoulder and relieved me of duty. It only took me a few seconds to fall into blissfully ignorant sleep. It only took one for a scream to wake me up.

[censored].