I can't wait to find out what happens!!!

STAND ASIDE COMRADE!WE'LL DEAL WITH THESE IMPERIALIST PIGS!
:gun:

Excellent.

Make a new one soon. The combination of crushed innocence by the harshness of the wastelands and the brattiness of 10-year-olds provide for a great story.

Make a new one real quick. In the words of your generation, Do the Hustle

It's coming. Half done. Had to pause to play the DLC. You wouldn't deny me that, would yah?

EIleen

DLC is good, But Why Cant We Have Combat Armour!? =[

September 21, 2277

Rivet City

I found a book under my bed and a poem in it struck deep into my heart:

** "I have endured much to reach this place in time
Yet I have not been sick, nor mad,
Nor ruined in a wreck.
And yet I feel I have.
There is a thing in me, the walls of cells are thin,
My veins are glass, my heart the merest whim
Of beat and pause and beat,
Deaths in the street are mine. I would not have it so.
I know much more than I would want to know.
The breakfast headlines tell me of a war,
I know they die out there; put down my spoon.
Men land on the moon tonight, I know their joy,
The boy in me goes with them as they tread
Far overhead on dust world beyond reach
They teach my tired blood to love again.
There's rain in downtown Peru tonight,
I wash my face in it. In Indo China, one more massacre,
I run a race in it and lose.
You see?
I cannot choose to be or not to be."

I am sitting here copying a poem out of a book written by a man long dead. But it's as though he is here with me; telling me how I feel. For all the choices I have made, good or bad, I cannot choose to be or not to be.

My mother is dead. My father is dead. Everything that I knew is no longer and I know too much. Something bears repeating. . .

". . .Yet I have not been sick, nor mad,
Nor ruined in a wreck.
And yet I feel I have. . . "

Nine years. Nine years have passed between the time I walked out of Vault 101 and today, when I arrived in Rivet City.

If someone had told me that taking my seat in the lounger in Vault 112 would change my life for the worst forever, I would never have done it. What was I to know? So I took my seat. And the dream began. . .

I dreamt. I dreamt of green grass and picket fences. Mailboxes and mothers. Cookies, candy, chocolates. Fathers mowing lawns. Birds in clear blue skies. Trees with leaves. Gentle wind. Sunday barbecues and paper routes. I dreamt of children laughing and playing in the summer sun and I was one of them.

I sat for hours under the trees in the playground drawing pictures of everything around me. I read books and wrote stories. I watched television with Timmy and we enjoyed shows such as Captain Cosmos, http://www.archive.org/details/Captain_Video-3, and http://www.archive.org/details/enter_the_lone_ranger. I was happy.

I played with Betty and Timmy every day. All day. Everything became one and the same. One day was always like the next; a happy blur. The days flew by without anyone noticing. Time stood still.

And then it changed.

My dreams at night became strange and frightening. They were full of sand, wind and death. I started to hear echoing whispers in my head while I was asleep and awake. The whispers sounded like "Alpha, Omega, Alpha, Omega" over and over. I spoke to no one about this as I did not want to ruin the happiness that was Tranquility Lane. "Alpha, Omega". What did it mean?

. . .

Everyone had told me that Old Mrs. Dithers was crazy and that I shouldn't talk to her. I usually didn't, but sometimes I did. I tried to be polite and just listen, but she kept telling me that I did not belong here. She said she had dreams and now those dreams sounded like mine. Did she hear voices as well? Was I crazy, too?

. . .

I saw Betty's dog, Doc, and I asked Timmy where he had come from. He looked at me funny and said he didn't know. Then he said that Betty had always had Doc. My body felt cold when he said that because I thought I remembered a time when Betty did not have a dog. What was wrong with me?

There was a brand new episode of Captain Cosmos just starting and Timmy and I were very excited. We sat down on the couch with our Nuka Colas and as the opening scene started I began to have a feeling that I had seen it before.

"Timmy," I asked, "are you sure we haven't seen this before?" He assured me that we hadn't and that it was brand new just this week. The Nuka Cola man who announced the weekly program had said so. As we began to watch I gradually became dizzy. It felt like I was watching through a tunnel far, far away.

I heard myself say, "Gee whiz, Jangles, did you have to go and steal Mr. Rivers' toupee again? Now I have to find a way to put it back before he finds out." Timmy stared at me, open-mouthed. I had uttered the exact same line that Captain Cosmos was delivering, at the exact same time. How could that happen if neither of us had seen this episode before? I didn't know and neither did Timmy.

Later on I saw Timmy whispering to Betty and she turned and gave me a look of pure hatred. What did I do?

Betty changed and began to bully me. She kept ordering me to make Timmy cry or she wouldn't play with me anymore. I only had two friends here and Betty was really starting to scare me. I gave in. After I made Timmy cry, I felt terrible, and when I went to Betty she demanded that I break up Mr. and Mrs. Rockwell's marriage! How could I do that? WHY would I do that? What was going on?

I began to ask everyone about Betty and her dog. Everyone I spoke with said that Betty was a wonderful girl and she had always had Doc. But that couldn't be right. It just didn't feel right. Finally, I went to Mrs. Dithers' house and this time she told me of the voices that spoke in her head.

Mrs. Dithers said that Betty did not always have a dog and that Betty was not Betty. She was someone else. Someone who was evil and was controlling everyone's lives. Now was the time for me to talk. I told her of my own dreams and of the Alpha Omega voice.

There was an abandoned house on Tranquility Lane. One that we were told never to enter, and we didn't. Mrs. Dithers said that the house was Betty's and that there was something in there that would prove that Betty was not who she appeared to be.

Later on that day, while everyone was at Mabel Henderson's for a barbecue, I snuck over to the abandoned house. I saw nothing at all out of the ordinary, but when I turned to leave I bumped an overturned couch that had a garden gnome sitting on it. A loud "DING" came from the gnome. Odd. I walked through the living room randomly tapping things and I found four more objects that made chiming noises: a Nuka Cola bottle, a radio, a pitcher and a cement block. I tried tapping them in different ways, and I suddenly realized I was copying the tune that Betty liked to whistle. As I tapped the last note on the bottle, the far wall rippled and a computer terminal became visible.

Mrs. Dithers had been right all along. Tranquility Lane was nothing but a computer simulation! Over the last TWO-HUNDRED YEARS there had been three computer simulations with Braun controlling everything. No wonder they had no clue what was going on. All their memories, actions, decisions. All controlled by Braun. All manipulated or loaded or deleted as Braun saw fit. Oh, my, God. How could he do that to these poor people? As I poured over the entries on the terminal all of my previous memories came rushing back to me. Dad, my birthday party, Amata, Megaton, my search for mom -- all these became real again.

I clicked on the "Chinese Invasion" entry and read all the details. Here was a way to end this ongoing horror for the people in Vault 112 and punish Braun at the same time. Everyone who was a Vault 112 resident would die a real death, but Braun would not. He'd be stuck here for as long as his two-hundred year old body could be kept alive and he would be all by himself. What better fitting justice than this?

Since I had just wandered into the Vault and was not a resident, the program would exclude me. I grinned and pressed the ENTER button.

Gunfire and screams broke the silence. I ran out of the house and watched, fascinated, as everyone was gunned down or simply executed by Chinese troops. Pools of simulated blood were everywhere. Betty stood in the middle of the playground with Doc. Her face was transfixed with horror. She saw me and screamed in anger, "You've ruined everything! EVERYTHING! Take your father and GET OUT!" A door had appeared in the middle of the playground.
"My . . . father?" I blurted, confused.
"Yes, your father," Betty, or Braun as it were, retorted. Then she laughed, "The dog. You idiot, you did not know the dog was your father? HAH!"

With that she pushed me through the door. I felt my body falling, falling, falling. Then I opened my eyes.

". . .There is a thing in me, the walls of cells are thin,
My veins are glass, my heart the merest whim
Of beat and pause and beat. . ."

The canopy to the lounger opened and I slowly climbed out. My body was stiff and I could barely move. My father! I reached the floor and saw my father running toward me. Old. He looked so old. His hair was almost silver and he had many lines on his face. The computer simulation had aged him dramatically. I reached out to hold him, "Dad! You came looking for me! Why did you take so long? It's been weeks!"
He looked at me with the strangest eyes, "Rowena," he said, "No, Sweetie, it hasn't been weeks. It's been years. It's 2277. It's been nine years since you ran away. . . and sweetheart. . ."

His voice broke and tears began to run down his face, "You're still ten years old."

"Dad, what do you mean I'm still ten years old? You said I had been in there for nine years."
"Sweetheart," he explained, "It's been nine years, but your body is still the same way it was the night you ran away. You're still the same size and you haven't aged at all. You're ten, physically."
A memory stirred, faint, but there. A voice saying, ". . . But there was a little side effect. A teeny, tiny, um, mutation. But it seems to be benign, at least."
Benign? Benign? The radiation! MOIRA! Damn you and your stupid survival guide!

. . .

** I Have Endured Much to Reach This Place by Ray Bradbury, 2004

Di'nt Get It at first... But now i do, Vwry good.

What was it that you didn't get?

Eileen

Just, how you went from 10 to 19 then to 10

Ah, good, that's okay.

All will become clearer sooooooooon

Eileen

I've added another paragraph onto my last entry in order to clarify a couple of thigns. I'll write the next entry later today/tomorrow.

Eileen

So,
Basically... The Radiation Form Wasteland Survival Guid Made you stay young?

Stay tuned . . .

Eileen

PS
Technically, in the game -- if you enter the lounger as a 10 year old child the game ages you to 19 when you exit it. Thfffpt! I set myself back to ten years old via the console.

Pretty unexpected.

This is epic-ness in teddy bear form. Hope to see more!

Please don't copy off the main storyline and make her or something. Give it a TWIIIIST!

I ain't saying nothing except that I already wrote "Dad is dead"

There's a reason for that, though.

The Corp is Mother. The Corp is Father

Eileen

Awesome! Tommorow, i might start one of my Character on my 360 version. Possibly mention Rowena, as an easter egg

WOAH WOAH WOAH! SPOILER CODE NEEDED. =O (Yeah, i knew that btw, just saying you might want to be careful)

huh that's weird.

Aww man, this is doing great, please new posts PL0XXX :cryvaultboy:

I'm in the middle of creating a Fallout 3 Monopoly game. Soon as I finish that I'll get back to the story. I needed a break anyhow

Eileen

Make more please this is awesome

You are going to post pics of it right? and how you made it right?