"Hmmm... I agree with you Richard... There does seem to be only one likely candidate that I know of but I'd hate to be wrong. The poor boy has gone through enough as it is..." Max said but then asked a question directly to the medical staff, "How is Kyle? Is he awake yet? I wonder if somehow these cases are linked..." After a few seconds Max started to pace and think at the same time, "I was speaking to Paul earlier in the canteen about Caine. He has a damaged youth but seems to think he is salvageable. Problem is, alot of things happen like this down in the vault and it has gone on too long. The records show from the previous inhabitants that the Vault was more of a Utopia than a Distopia..." Max turned around and finally added with a slightly more serious tone, "But if it is Caine... I'm wondering if church will change him or whether we will have to take more drastic measures... Paul is a good man, but this is a different type of being... Will Paul just be putting himself in harms way?"

Richard said, "We can only help someone or something can show him the error of his ways." Richard then started to download the medical files on his Pip-Boy to put inside the mainframe later.

"I don't know Max." Jonathan looked at the floor. "What happens if it doesn't work? What are we going to do with him." Jonathan looked up again but this time he was looking at Kyle. "Kyle's okay he could leave at the end of the day. Anyway I'd hate for Paul to get hurt, he seems like a nice guy and judging by what Caine has done here he has the capability of hurting him bad if not killing him. Well judging if its Caine that is."

Richard said, "Call me if anything comes up, you know where I am." He then left to go add the new information to the Vault mainframe.

BRIEF CHARACTER UPDATE:

Occasionally I will post Brief character updates allowing everyone who is taking part and those who are reading to see exactly where all the characters in play are and what they are doing to help the game flow, to avoid confusion and also for reference purposes...

(If you want to join the game or you want your character removed from the game, please contact me with a private message)

Max Strive: In Med-Bay
Status: Discussing Caine's Behaviour

Sarah Strive: In the Canteen with Friends.
Status: Sitting/Gossiping/Drinking Coffee

Ashley Strive: In Mrs Tibbit's Classroom with Children his Age.
Status: Learning

Jonathan Hunt: In Med-Bay
Status: Discussing Caine's Behaviour

Ryan Sammuels: In Med-Bay
Status: Discussing Caine's Behaviour

Harley Andrews: Recovering in Med-Bay
Status: Injured/Sleeping

Nikolai Laurence: ?? (Last Seen at the Party)
Status: ??

Caine Deckard: Laying Low
Status: Avoiding Suspicion

Kyle Whitmore: Recovering in Med-Bay
Status: Injured/Sleeping

Jimmy: Recovering in Med-Bay
Status: Overdose/Unconcious

Ronnie Mclain: Disturbingly Still in Water Purification Area
Status: Bleeding from Nose and Mouth

Steven Blunt: ?? (Hasn't Posted Yet)
Status: ??

Paul McAlly: In Med-Bay
Status: Discussing Caine's Behaviour

Francois Jermane: On the way from Canteen to Labs
Status: Walking

Elisha Davidson: ?? (Last Mentioned in Bed)
Status: Sleeping

Zereth Acranum: Pinning Luke to the Floor
Status: Fighting

Luke Sensus: Being Pinned to the Floor by Zereth
Status: Fighting

Richard Warren: On the way from Med-Bay to Information Archives
Status: Adding to Vault Mainframe

James Richards: In Canteen
Status: Hangover/No Ration Coupons

Lisa Parker: ?? (Last Seen at the Party)
Status: ??

"Yes, we will keep you updated Richard, see you later" Max said to Richard as he left the Med-Bay. Max turned around to the others and announced "?Ok well, these sure are dark times for us at the moment but we can pull together and sort this. You all have jobs to do, as do I, so our main priority is dedicating our time to looking after the vault and making sure everything is running smoothly. In doing our daily jobs and ensuring the safety of our residence, our second priority is to keep a look out for Caine as we go about our daily business. If you find him, do not confront him too harshly, we know how he will react. Stay calm, don't lose your temper and try to get him to co-operate with you. He's had a tough life so go easy on the kid. We must bring him in for questioning and we must unite to try and help him back on to the right path." With that he walked to the door, activated it so that it opened and then turned around. "I have to do the rounds and check all the engineering in this place. If you need my attention, activate my Pip-Boy personal alarm and I will respond to it as soon as I can. You all know my frequency. Everything will be just fine?" And with that he smiled and walked out the door? He would first check the ventilation pipes and vault heating system. He made his way to the lower levels and the service tunnels of the vault...

Caine made his way to the cafeteria after the incident in the lower vault apartments, bringing with him a bottle of booze from his stash. He'd taken several swigs already before making it there, the images from earlier still stuck in his mind. "[censored] Jimmy... Why the hell couldn't he handle his junk better? No one else has OD'd on my stuff before... It had to be his stupid fault.. His weakness." he said to himself as he sat down at a table furthest away from the door.

It wouldn't be long before the calvary showed up to question Caine. He had a reputation around the vault so it didn't take a genius to figure out what came next. He had his brass knuckles on just in case anyone wanted a little biblical revenge, and the alcohol in case someone wanted to convert him. Caine fought better when he was drunk, felt less and hit harder.

Ryan took the ration ticket and quickly hurried down to the canteen, and got John some coffee. Ryan had asked around about any Jet in circulation, but he would guess that anyone using the stuff wouldn't want to rat out the dealer. He returned to find Richard and Max there, discussing the drug issue. Caine's name came up almost instantly. Ryan handed John his coffee and listened to the conversation, not really saying much. Getting to Caine would be a lot harder than any of these people made it out to be. Max and Richard left, leaving Ryan and John to tend to the patients. Ryan checked Kyle. He turned back to John and said,
"Kyle can leave when he wakes up. I'm taking him off the med-x."

He then made his way over to Harley and inspected his hand.

"Harley looks good too. I'm going to take off the med-x and see how he feels." Ryan said, stripping the bag from its stand.

Ryan sighed and turned toward John.

"No one is willing to talk. Our best bet is this kid." Ryan said as he poked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating Jimmy.

Richard walked to the Vault mainframe computer in the mainframe archives and started downloading the data he had acquired from his Pip-Boy. While he was doing that, a voice said, "So this is your job, huh?" Richard turned around to see the same girl from last night. Richard asked, "What are you doing here?" The girl answered, "I was just looking around." Richard said, "I guess you can stay, I don't get much company in here. So what's your name?" She answered, "Judith." Richard answered, "I'm Richard, care to tell a little more about yourself." With that, the two started a conversation.

James heard the alarm and it made his hangover worse, almost unbearable. Lisa's voice broke the pain. "Hey James, here's some food," Lisa said as she sat down handing James a plate of food. "Noticed you were out of rations earlier."
"Thanks." James took the plate and started eating.
"When I woke up this morning, I noticed my brother was no where to be found. I checked around, and turns out he had OD." Lisa stared at the table.
James stopped eating and looked at Lisa. "Is he alright? Do you want to go see him?"
Lisa looked at James. "Ok, if it's fine with you."
"It is." James cleaned up the table and they made their way to the med-bay.
When they got there James motioned for someone to see them.

((OOC: Hope it's okay that I made them related. If not I'll change it))

Ryan looked at the couple that had entered. He didn't recongize either of them. He approached them.
"hello. I am Dr. Samuels. Can I help you two?" He asked, holding out his hand for a handshake.

Jonathan was already asleep on the chair while waiting for Jimmy to wake up. He was laid back with his head down when two people walked in. He heard Ryan talking and that woke him up from his light sleep. "Huh, Oh hi i'm Dr. Hunt." He could see Ryan was taking care of the situation and sat back down.

I hadn't heard a thing since I started my work in my own personal labratory, that was an upside of being shunned, I got left alone. I looked around me and I sighed, I quickly stirred up the mixture I was working on. After it came to a standstill, it slowly changed colour from purple to clear, I chuckled, "Fascinating," I muttered, I then quickly added another substance to the mixture. It changed from clear to dark red, I quickly put it in a syringe and took a breath. I stabbed it into my arm and pressed, I felt the liquid go into my bloodstream.

I waited for a minute before I quickly wrote something down, Heightened Perception, perceiving reality much easier, thinking clearer, feel stronger. I then put down the pen and sat down, I drank a small glass of a clear substance, hopefully this would flush the chemicals out of my system, I'd been experimenting long enough. I took a breath and got up, it was time to get out of here, I had no idea how long I'd been, so I just shrugged my shoulders and got up.

I walked down the hallway and I noticed someone walking, almost whistling, I scratched my head, then sighed. I walked up to the person and smiled, "Hello, er, how are you? I'm Francois, one of the scientists. I've been stuck in a lab all day, can you tell me what's been happening today?" I muttered out, I was stuttering from my lack of human contact. I waited to hear an answer, I was bored, bored enough to talk to someone random.

(OOC: This can be anyone, I don't care who, Lol, I really just CAN'T keep up with this whole thing cause of the time zones.)

Nikolai awoke suddenly from the sound of the alarm. He felt a little dizzy and checked his Pip-Boy,it wasn;t going off. He thought to himself just then,"Why do I always check my Pip-Boy? What kind of emergency requires a hydroponics moniter"? The last time anyone from this division got an emergency signal was years ago when Caine's mom died from the toxic leak here.
Nikolai rubbed his eyes as he tryed recollect his thoughts over what happened after the party,he had a slight hangover. "Oh god,why did I just try to remember that? When most everyone else had left,he stayed there at the bar for hours. He was having another bad case of insomnia,and he tryed to drink until he passed out. Instead he wandered back to hydroponics and talked to the plants for hours,he confesses more to the plants than to the church chaplin. He cryed by himself for hours last night,regreting not spending more time with his parents,he barely sees them and when he has a chance to spend a lot of time with them he gets drunk at the bar.
He must have gone on like that for hours,before passing out at 4:00 a.m.,which would explain him waking up at 12:43 p.m.! "Huh,when was the last time I went into a guilt trip like that,and here I thought I worked that out. I guess liquor brings back the old weakness in me. Good thing I dont drink that often". Nikolai tried keeping his mind off last night by looking over the plants. He soon felt his stomach rumbling,figures since he missed breakfast. After enjoying a self-made salad of freshly picked vegetables,and an apple for dessert,he relized he hadn't checked the water yet."Ah hell I'm still breathing after all that so I guess its clean for now". Before leaving to check up on the alarm,he injected himself with a stim-pack for a little pick-me-up.

O.C.C.: FYI I'm having a bad case of insomnia myself at the moment.

Caine, after getting sufficiently buzzed of some powerful whiskey started to head back toward his quarters. He passed the Med Bay and overheard a group of people talking about his actions lately. He'd pressed himself against the wall just outside the door and listened intently, wanting to know if they were going to move on him soon.

"Kyle's okay he could leave at the end of the day. Anyway I'd hate for Paul to get hurt, he seems like a nice guy and judging by what Caine has done here he has the capability of hurting him bad if not killing him. Well judging if its Caine that is."

"Damn right...", he muttered under his breath while moving away from the doorway slowly. He started toward his quarters and reached inside his jacket, retrieving a pack of marlboros and popping a cigarette in his mouth. He then whipped out his zippo and fired it up, breathing in deeply and planning his next step in this brand new cluster-[censored] he'd gotten himself into. "Right... I could try to get to that punk Jimmy and finish the job before he can squawk to the squares that occupy this giant tin can. Or... Hm." All of a sudden a lightbulb flickered on in Caine's head, a trademark grin spreading across his face.

A few moments later Caine was in front of a chemical storage unit, pulling his switchblade out of his jacket pocket and brandishing the blade. He then jammed it into the electronic lock box, twisting and jerking it crudely as sparks flew out. The door opened shortly after this, allowing Caine to sneak inside grab jugs of nitric and sulfuric acid along with an empty canister. After getting what he needed he ran back to his apartment and locked the door, what he intended to do was absolutely fatal pending an interruption.

Now Caine was no explosives expert, that was obvious considering he nearly blew his hand off with a cherry bomb when he was a kid. He did however, know science. And science when properly applied (or rather improperly) could prove just as fatal as a fragmentation grenade to the face.

He poured each acid into the canister very slowly, making sure he got the correct amounts exactly. He didn't even need to add a detonator considering how volatile nitroglycerin is, a jerking or jarring motion would set it off in a big way. 15 minutes later, voila. Caine had created a crude bomb with relative ease, taking the canister and setting it above his door in a manner that if anyone opened it past a certain angle, the canister would fall and the nitro would blow them to pieces.

Satisfied with his boobytrap, Caine headed downstairs into the purification room, lighting up a fresh cig and listening for a "boom".

James shook Dr. Samuels hand, saying "Hello, I'm james, and this is Lisa. She's Jimmy's brother. We heard he was here? Is he doing alright?"
"Can I see him?" Lisa asked.

Once he got to the maintenance terminals he started accessing his pip boy to check, compare and update the temperature gauges. All semmed find and he then proceeded to check the condition of the pipes and the quality of the seals inplace from previous ruptures. He tightened a few screws here and there and everything was fine. Next on his list was the reactor and the water purification chamber. No sign of Caine as of yet but he was keeping an eye open. The vault was big but there is only so many places he can hide. Max just prayed that it wasn't him that was the source of all this. He used to be such a nice guy before the events that effected him so badly. He made his way to the reactor first...

Harley woke up, many hours after he fell asleep. He felt his arm and realized the I.V had been removed. He lay in the cot, thinking about whether he would need to rest any longer, and whether he should go take his revenge. He lay there for ten minutes, until deciding if he needed to get more rest, the doctors would just call him back. And anyway, how much rest would he really need for losing some blood.

He sat up in the bed, wondering what time it was. He had been out for hours. Looking around the room he spotted his toolkit on the floor near the door. He got up off the bed and put his jacket on, went over to the toolkit and removed the huge wrench. His hand still hurt like hell if he put to much strain on it, but thats why it was lucky that Harley was right-handed.

He left the toolkit on the Med bay floor and left the room with his wrench. He could pretty much follow a trail of blood along the floor, to the panel. When he got to the damaged electrical panel, he was quite shocked. The smashed panel was completely covered in dried blood, almost as though somebody had painted it with blood and a paint brush.

He lifted the wrench in his right hand, high above his head. With one hard strike the rest of the bloody panel shattered into a hundred pieces. Happy with himself, Harley headed back to the medical bay.

"Yes, Yes of course" Ryan said, leading the couple over to Jimmy's bed. Ryan stepped back, and crossed his arms across his chest as he leaned up against the wall, waiting for the inevitable questions. Ryan heard footsteps outside the door. he looked towards the doorway just as Harley wandered back into the medbay. Ryan had to do a double take to make sure he was looking at the right thing.

"Harley. What are you doing out of bed? Did Dr. Hunt check you out? We still want to take a look at that hand of yours."

Harley entered the med bay, to find Ryan questioning him about being up.

"Well, uh, I, uh, had something, uh, important to take care of" Harley said, holding the wrench in his hand behind his right leg, "And uh, when I woke up, the I.V was taken off me, so I, assume Dr Hunt has taken a look at me".

He started to feel a bit dizzy again when he spoke, perhaps he did get out of bed just a bit early. "Uh maybe I should lay down, just a bit longer" he said, sitting back onto the bed, hiding the wrench under his thigh.

"I just don't want to take up one of your beds" he said as he lay down. It seems he was a lot tireder than he had thought. He instantly fell asleep as he lay on the bed, with his legs hanging off the side of the bed and his wrench under his right thigh.

...as Max arrived in the reactor room, he couldn't really see anything except the glowing generator with a few sparks coming off it. He checked the light switch but nothing happened so he went over to the fuse box nd opened it. Everything seemed in order so it must have been the bulbs. He went back to the janitors closet and grabbed a few spares and set off back to the reaector chamber again. It wasn't really his job but he didn't mind, as he was here he might aswell replace them himself instead of getting someone else to do it. He pulled out and opened up a step ladder, climbed up, replaced a broken bulb, climbed down and did the same again a few times on the otherside of the room. He then went back to the light switch and switched it on. The lights came on brighter than ever. Now that he could see what he was doing, he got stuck in to checking and maintaining the nuclear reactor generator for the vault...

...What seemed like a long while later, Max appeared, now covered in grease and oil, but it was a job well done. He slipped out from under the generator and rubbed his hands on a dirt cloth that he had brought with him. He packed up his tools and left to go to the water purifying area. He checked his pip boy on the way there to see what time it was and it read "15:37". He was starting to get hungry again and Ashley would be at home from school now so he wanted to get back as quickly as possible to see how his day was and to see if maybe he wanted to go grab a snack and tell him all about it..

Nikolai walked into the Med-Bay and saw Ryan tending to Jimmy and Harley. "What the hell happened here Ryan"? After being told about the situation,Nikolai asked for another set of stimpacks. "More stimpacks Nikolai? You go through enough stimpacks for 6 people. Those things are a poor substitute for sleep."
Nikolai sighed,knowing Ryan has discussed this with him countless times. He had a full blown addiction to stimpacks,but at least it was like getting addicted to caffeine and not that Jet crap. "Its your call Ryan,but I just cant keep going through the day without them."

He entered the water purification area and smelt a horrible smell as soon as he entered. Max covered his nose with his hand and voiced his disgust with a muffled "urgh, what is that horrible smell?" He looked around to try and find the source and behind a large set of pipes, covered in blood, was the body of Ron McLain. Max rushed to his attention and checked his pulse but this man was quite portly and in the panic he couldn't really find anything that he was guaranteed wasn't his own racing heart. He decided the best thing to do was to try and get him to one of the medical bays asap, preferably the closest. He hoisted the man the best he could over his shoulder and staggered towards the door of the purifier in an attempt to get to the medical-bay before he collapsed. This man's life depended on it? assuming he wasn't already dead?

Just as he was leaving he caught a glimpse of Caine out of the corner of his eye. "Caine, are you ok?! What happened down here?!" After a while of waiting and listening to his response, he interrupted under the pressure of the weight on his shoulder and said straining slightly, "Never mind for now, please can you help me take this man to the medical bay? He needs emergency assistance and I don't think I can manage it on my own?" Max stood looking at Caine waiting for a reply, his legs getting weaker by the second?

Caine simply took another drag off his cigarette and laughed a little, pointing to the unconscious junkie and saying in a matter-of-fact tone: "Actually, Ronnie over there tried sticking me with a blade a few hours ago. I could care less if he dies, if he isn't already dead. I guess his face fell on my knee, and his wrist snapped itself."

Caine then started toward the stairs, turning back to Max as if he forgot something. "And fair warning, I would forget about what happened to Jimmy. When I feel my back is against the wall I resort to unsavory tactics.", he said before continuing up the stairs, walking no where in particular.

"Urgh, Caine, please! We used to get on so well? What happened? Please dont walk a..." Max called out as he walked up the stairs but he disappeared out of sight... "...way... damnit!..." Max then muscled all his strength together and headed up the stairs and down the halls towards the med-bay hoping someone might stumble across him on the way and give him a hand, his legs would only be able to carry him so far, and he was really dehydrated from all the work he had done that day. He had no water so he was just going to have to stick with it... Ron's life depended on it... assuming that smell from him wasn't a fail safe sign that he was dead already...