The Holotape

Sgt. Henderson was kneeling in a burned out room, sifting through a mountain of burned books, papers and smashed holotapes.

“Find anything interesting there Sargent?”

Sgt. Henderson stood up brushing the ash from his knees and hands, “a few things Colonel, a couple of holotapes and a book or two. There over there in that box by the door.”

The Colonel walked over to the box, “there’s not much here is there? He said as he eyed the box, “those bastard Enclave sure as hell didn’t want us finding this place.”

“Sure looks that way sir, after we breached the walls and made it into this room one of them set off a pile of C4, killing himself along with three of our men in the process.”

The Colonel, looking through the box frowned, “the higher ups aren’t going to be happy. They were hoping to get some valuable information form Navarro. So far all we have found is destroyed terminals and burned books.” He looked down at a holotape in his hand. It was scorched; he doubted the techs would ever get it to play.

“Hey Sargent, I found something” said private Burns as he came out of a side room.

‘”Hand it here son” said the Colonel.

“I did not know he had come in Colonel, here you go.”

Private Burns handed the Colonel an old manila envelope that somehow escaped the blast. The Colonel looked the envelope over. In Block faded letters it read ‘ANCHORAGE COMMAND: JANUARY 3RD 2066.’ He turned the envelope over and slowly undid the string. He then upended the envelope over his hand, out slid a holotape.

“Looks in good shape Sir, do you think it will work?” said Henderson.

“Only one way to find out, hand me the player.”

Henderson reached into his kit and handed the Colonel the old holoplayer, “here you go Sir.”

The Colonel then lifted up an over turned desk, wiped the dust and debris off with his free hand and set the player down. Once again he looked the holotape over and placed it into the player.

Static played for several seconds, “looks like it’s a blank,” said Burns. Just then the voice of a terrified young man came from the tape.

“If anyone finds this my name is… *static* it was General Paxton *static* he’s the rat bastard traitor! All the radar and radio problems, it was all him!” Gunfire and explosions cut through the static of the tape. “Oh god in heaven they’re, the Chinese are here! They hit the beach while we were busy trying to get the radar system back online.”

The Colonel, Henderson and Burns listened quietly to the young man on the tape, his voice full of terror.

“I tried to get the General on the horn but the line was dead, *Gunfire and static* I took the jeep to his tent. The bastard went and shot himself, his staff *static* I was able to download the file off his terminal before the bastard’s booby trap blew.”
The rest of the tape was static. The Colonel then opened the file marked “WELL DONE,” it read.

“Well done General, thanks to your hard work our organization’s plans are well under way. As for our agreement, your family will be well taken care of when the time comes. Well done Paxton, well done, I knew you were the right man for the job.”

“What do you think it mean Colonel?” asked Henderson

“I don’t know son,” the Colonel then removed the holotape from the player and returned it to the old envelope. He paused to look at it, weighing it in his hand, before placing it into the box along with the other recovered documents. “Let me know if you find anything else.”

The Vaults

Albert leaned back in his office chair, taking a deep breath and slowly ran his hands through his thinning hair. He reached for his cup of coffee, the third one of the evening. While still focused on the large blueprints laid out on his desk, he blew on his coffee before taking a big sip. He coughed and chocked on the cold coffee, some of it landing on the blueprints.

“Ah, [censored] it,” he said while trying to recover from a coughing fit. Tossing the cup along with its cold contents into the waste bin, Albert then did his best to remove the coffee stains from the blueprints using tissues and scrap paper.

Once again leaning back in his chair he started to rub his eyes with the palms of his hands. “This isn’t adding up, I’ve done the math a hundred times. Why won’t they listen to me?” He said in a frustrated tone to himself.

“Albert, what in God’s name are you still doing here? It’s late you should go home,” came a familiar voice from the end of the cubicles.

Albert yawned and looked at his wrist watch, focusing his tired eyes he noticed the time was, 11:46 pm. He turned to see who was speaking to him. “Oh, sir, hi. Yeah, I am just going over the math for Vault 12, again. May I ask what you are doing here, sir?”

“I need to get some things from my office that I forgot. I have a flight to catch soon.” The man paused, eyeing Albert’s present state and the coffee stained mess of his cubicle. “You’re going over the numbers again? How many times has it been Albert; how many hours have you spent on this?

Albert was about to respond when his boss cut him off. “Look Albert, we have been over this and over this, the door will close. Three other engineers have gone over the plans and they all say it will close just fine.”

“Sir, if you will just look at the plans,” Albert said in a defensive tone, his hands spread out over the blueprints.

“I have, Albert. I helped designed that Vault; it’s being built as we speak.”

“If you just look Sir.”

“That’s enough Albert, enough! I have entertained your behaviour long enough. You’re becoming paranoid and you’re not helping the matter. By sending reports about these imaginary problems, you’re causing trouble over nothing. I am tired of it Albert, I really am. I want you to take some time off for a few weeks, it should help you relax.”

“But sir they aren’t imaginary, I think someone has been altering my work, changing my reports,” Albert said in a hurry.

His boss removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge nose. “Like I said you are paranoid. Albert, I want you to get up from that chair, get your things and go home. Get some sleep and in the morning book a flight to Florida and for God sakes relax! Then come back in three weeks.”

“I have found other mistakes sir, on other vaults. Look at this, the food extruders for Vault 36 aren’t like the others and…” Albert was cut off.

“Albert, I am heading to my office and when I get back I want you gone! Take my advice and go on vacation,” said his boss. He then turned and walked into his office.

Albert sighed; he turned on his terminal’s screen. He finished typing the last few lines on his latest report. “Someone will listen to me,” he said in a low voice. He clicked send on the report which was addressed to many people.

Turing off the lamp and the terminal, he then grabbed his briefcase and put on his coat and hat. “Someone will listen to me,” Albert said looking at his boss through the office widow. He was on the phone, he looked angry. As is if he sensed Albert’s eyes he turned and looked right at him.

Albert waved good bye only to have his boss lower the screen to the window. Albert made his way to the elevator, where he then selected the button to the basemant parking lot. The lot was empty of cars, no one around. He started to walk toward his car, a light flickered overhead.

“Stop right there, please present employee identification,” came a robotic voice of a Sentry bot.

Albert paused and reached into his coat pocket and took out his identification and held it up to the Sentry. “

“Second warning, please present employee identification.”

“It’s right here you bucket of bolts,” Albert then held his identification right up against the Sentries' scanner.

“Employee identification, recognised as Albert B Turner, terminated from Vault-Tec Industries at 12:21 am today.”

Albert stepped back from the Sentry in shock, “what do you mean terminated?!”

“You have 30 seconds to leave Vault-Tech Industry property before this unit is authorised to use deadly force, 30, 29, 28...”

“Albert stood shocked as the Sentry counted down, it reached 21 seconds before he finally snapped out of it. Albert ran for his car, as he ran he was reaching into his pocket to get the keys. He made it to his car but was not able to find his keys.

The Sentry kept counting down as it followed Albert to his car, “11, 10, 9...”

Albert finally pulled his keys from his pocket just as the Sentry reached “one.”