0001: Of Alison of TekVault0101

TekVaults had been designed and built more multiple purposes mainly by VaultTek of the TekCorporations. They had meant to last for at most a century but had been guranteed for much longer. As Alison tried to fix yet another failing vault mechanism, she was far from the only VaultDweller who had great doubts in the so called guarantee. In a dark purple jumpsuit of a sterile woman, that is allowed to work even out in the more isolated parts of the vault, she had come to know the SubZone of the vault all together too well for her liking. It was shadowy, lit often with cheap long lasting fluroslabs that sometimes had faded or even failed, was infested with nasty radcritters and had other problems. She knew the maze of mazes very well, as only a few knew it, and was greatly prized by the VaultGov for it, the TekVault Overseer Government.

Alison checked the temperature level on the cheap flatscreen and accepted, with a sigh, that the fixing would get as good as it got. She reached out with a gloved hand and wished strongly that she could fix it much better. At that moment it happened. There was a surge of energies through her bodies, a strange and slightly disturbing feeling, the fairly large mechanism shimmered and then it was brand new looking. The data display of the flatscreen showed a machine that worked much finer than it did once.

At that moment she was pleased but then she was 'sensing' the sudden appearance of increasing danger, a new 'sense' of things that did not please her at all. She quickly put everything into her utility-backpack, took up her regulation 10mmC semiautomatic, 'C' standing for caseless. It was a big, heavy, powerful handgun but she never had enough ammunition for her liking. It was loaded with a full clip of a dozen bullets, she had one spare full clip and eight 'loose' bullets in a pouch. As a back up she had a semilegal unofficial 'artisan made' 12-gauge double barreled break open type shotgun. She kept the pistol in its holster, made sure her electric stunner was in its pouch and the survival knife in its sheaf, made sure the shotgun was loaded and started to leave the small utility chamber. Which was when she noticed the other mechanism, a brand new copy of the one she had somehow rejuvenated but it was fully on the floor, in a corner, the part that was normally hidden inside the wall being exposed.

Just what was going on?

The voice spoke deep in her mind, warm and friendly but not quite human.

-=What is going on is that you have to get out of there. Move!

So she moved steadily, leaving at a fast pace but not too fast as to tire herself out. Alison traveled along a big utility corridor, turned a sharp corner into another and kept weaving to make it harder for the threat to see her. Somehow she 'sensed' where it was coming from and that it was very dangerous. Nor was it a threat that she was used to; it was just a mystery. Then she came to a reliably working wire-teleport cubicle, sealed it up behind herself and dematerialized with a soft sparkling shimmer. She did not like using the TekVault's Wire-Teleport Network, not really trusting to its safety network-systems; people only tended to use it in emergencies for any life forms for they were most often used for sterialized non living objects, non-organic ones being safer to use than organic ones.

Just before she vanished she saw something big, humanoid, part metallic and part thick, hard fur, racing towards her with amazing speed and power. Yet she caught no real details.

Alison materialized in a wire-teleport cubicle that was one of five lining one wall of a transportation hub chamber. A blue jumpsuited man was there with his clipboard-computer, was surprised to see a human come out of a wire-teleport chamber. He frowned. "Alison Redfield, I should know you would break regulations."

"Due to a surprise threat in the D112 SubZone I was forced to take emergency action. Full sterialization precedures were carried out. Hopefully 3Deyes took recordings and we can retrieve a view of the monster."

She described the monster, as best she could, but neither she or the man were surprised when all they could retrieve from the Security Network were heavily blurred 3Dvideo images and some very fuzzy noises, quite muted. She did not speak of what she had done, with out meaning to on a conscious level, or the voice that spoke in her mind. Somehow she 'sensed' that it was most important that she not do so.

Alison made her way to her work base, to her own work station. With electric power supplies declining in amount, and reliability, many efforts had been taken to conserve it. One was the increasing use of pedal powered transport such as bicycles, big tricycles and even four wheeled quadcycles. There were official reports, and unofficial stories, of bigger pedal vehicles being designed and built along with pedal-boats for the open water canols to be found in some parts of the vault.