Maintenance duty. One of the most hard, boring and overall depressing jobs you can get in a vault. Spending hours each day in a grimy jumpsuit coated in oil, grease and occasionally even human waste just waiting for your next coffee break, then back to work again. It's a job they give to all of those too stupid to do anything better with their lives. It's the job I'm stuck with.
After you reach the age of 16 in vault 3, you take the G.O.A.T, or Generalised Occupational Aptitude Test which decides what you will do for a living. Others, such as my friend Steve can get good jobs, such as a scientist or doctor. Others, such as myself don't put any effort into our studies, fail the G.O.A.T, and end up doing backbreaking labour for 9 hours a day. Still, it's much better than being outside.
I awoke to the high pitched beeping of my pip-boy 3000, and slowly got out of bed. I turned on the screen and flipped through the orange tinted menus until I found the option to disable the alarm, the time in the top left corner reading 5:30 AM, as per usual. I yawned as I stumbled around in an attempt to find the light switch, knocking over most of the things on my desk in the process. After I finally managed to find it, I quickly threw on my utility jumpsuit and left the room.
The lights in the grey steel corridors automatically switched on as I slowly made my way up to the canteen. I had about an hour before my shift started, and wanted to make the most of it. The corridors were empty at this time, as always, so I began to sing a song to myself as I walked. "Hey Michael, never knew you were the musical type!" I jumped at the sudden voice and spun around, nearly falling over. It was Sarah, one of the many security gaurds, and one of my few friends in the vault. Her long black hair flowed down from inside her helmet, and her bright green eyes were clearly visable even through the visor. She was wearing her worn out security armour, with a large baton holstered on her hip. "Oh, sorry didn't mean to scare you..." she said, trying not to laugh. "It's okay." I replied. "What are you doing up anyway? I thought you had the afternoon shift."
"Oh, I got reassigned yesterday" She replied, smiling. "Really? That's good, at least I won't be alone in the canteen anymore. Speaking of which, wanna go get breakfast?"
"Sure, It's not like I have anywhere better to be at the moment" She replied, as we once again began walking through the maze of corridors.
"Did you hear about the overseers son?" asked Sarah as we made our way through the main hall. "I don't believe so. Why?"
"Him and some others were caught by security trying to leave the vault last night. They found them just before they managed to open the main door." This was news. Nobody had ever tried to leave the vault. There had been a poll a few months ago when the okay had been given by vault-tec, the results of which showed that 93.7% of vault residents wanted to stay. "What? Why on Earth would anyone want to leave?"
"Well... I actually agree with him. We've been in here long enough, and if vault-tec say we can leave then I say we should. Whatever we find out there is better than remaining cooped up in here all our lives, waiting for death." I stopped walking and looked at her in shock. "Wh... what? You honestly want to leave the vault to explore some irradiated shithole?!" Sarah looked offended, but tried to explain. "I'd rather live in an 'irradiated shithole' than put up with being bossed around by the overseer all my life, trapped in this... cage." I said nothing, and just carried on walking, Sarah close behind me. Little did I know how much things were about to change...
