Vault 27 : This vault would be overcrowded deliberately. 2,000 people would be assigned to enter, double the total sustainable amount.
I can't sleep. It's hard to. It doesn't make any sense.
My eyes are wide open in the darkness, and I think I'm staring at the ceiling, but I can't be too sure. I suppose there are better odds that I'm staring at somebody else's face.
I'm sharing a bed with a man who's clearly a murderous gang member, because Overseer Lane said so. I told the dick I'm not even suppose to take orders from you, I hang in Overseer Walker's block, but he just shoved past a girl scrambling to get in line for the bathroom, got right up in my face, and said, "My block, my rules."
Everybody thinks he's a giant dick, and he knows it. People from his block complain about him to other block members all the time. Some even sneak over to other parts of the vault, to blend in with another block and leave Lane's behind. Of course, in reality, nobody sneaks anywhere. People come and go from block to block and nobody really keeps track of them. Nobody could if they wanted to.
It's only Overseer Lane who's a real stickler for the whole "once a block member, always a block member" thing. I've heard he tries to keep a list of everyone that hangs out in his block for more than a day, and if he can't find them a few days later, he'll stalk throughout the vault to hunt them down and brand them as a traitor to Block L. Those branded as traitors are forbidden to return.
It's fucking ridiculous, to say the least. Everybody down here knows that keeping track of anybody is a joke. People come, people go. Sometimes I go weeks without recognizing anybody's face around me, not even from the day before. Sometimes not even from the hour before. It seems like no one sticks around long enough in one place for you to truly remember them.
There are some that couple up and try to form relationships, but those don't last too long. They're rooted out by anyone who sees them and are removed for showing "breeding behaviors". Removed is the pretty word the Overseers use for the bodies that are burned in the lower levels by the storage rooms.
It sucks for girls who want children or those that get pregnant on accident, but, in the end, I have no sympathy for those that are removed. They should know by now that the space here is not going to get any bigger, and yeah, there are people dying all the time, by murders or old age or accidents or tramplings or suffocation, but there are just as many horny assholes getting pregnant, keeping it a secret - how, I haven't a clue - and popping out kids into this mess.
Solution: kids are raised, parents are removed. One gain, but two losses, and it all evens out. I don't think even the toughest or most psychotic bastards in here would be able to kill a kid anyway, so we don't. In between deaths and removals, the accident babies never seem to make things worse than they already are. Things just stay constant. Stagnant.
I heard they have been for a long, long while. Long before I came around. Just another reckless, accident baby who never knew her parents, because my father was killed before the cord was cut and my mother when I was old enough to not need her milk anymore. From then on, I was raised by people all around the vault, same with the other children my age. Foreign hands held me while I cried in the morning, and a different pair of hands fed me dinner the same day. Learned everything I know from all kinds of people.
I was lucky to survive, honestly. To 23 as well; someone ought to give me a medal. Toddlers are untouchable, but after a certain age, you're treated the same as everyone else, and lots of older people get real angry real fast of younger faces. On the other hand, some men just can't help themselves. After all, there's a reason why most pregnancies are from girls no older than 20. Most can't even begin to remember the face of the man who did it to them. Most never even see him again before they're removed, giving their life for their child to fill the space they left behind.
I hate it when I can't sleep. I have no choice but to lay on my back as my mind wanders to all kinds of horrible shit that happens in here. The man beside me snores away, one of his heavy legs thrown over both of mine and his head taking up most of the shared pillow between us. Nothing new. Though still nothing I've gotten use to yet.
Sometimes the snores and sighs of the fifty people packed into the room make for a good lullaby. Other times, they're just insomniac fuel.
It's a rude awakening in the morning.
One of the Overseers, Jackson, turns on the intercom and announces that the dining rooms in Blocks L and W are open, but that J is still getting things prepared.
I'm groggy and still half-asleep from being woken up by the Overseer's voice, but even in my sleepy daze, I know what Overseer Jackson just said was the worst thing that she could have. Never tell people that one station is lagging behind. Everyone will just funnel to the other two that aren't and then everything will become a clogged shithole. Rookie mistake, Jackson.
I shift in bed, struggling to roll over without touching my bed partner. I plan to just wait it out and avoid the inevitable trampling that's going to take place. I don't mind leftovers, anyway.
As I start to close my eyes again to the shuffling of people getting up and pushing their way towards the door, I feel my bed partner's weight dip the mattress as he sits up and pats my back.
"Food time, cutie," he says. I can feel the smile in his voice. I shut my eyes and pull the thin fabric some try to call a sheet up to my neck.
"I'll pass on the 'radroach with a side of death'," I respond, my voice light, trying to play the joker. Trying to make him stop seeing me as a woman and start seeing me as a number.
It works, kind of. "Shit. I ain't dyin' over a damn roach. Fuckin' animals." He continues to grumble and mutter swears, sitting on the edge of our bed, probably watching the animals scramble to the breakfast bell and step over those unfortunate enough to have a bed on the floor.
The dip that his weight creates in the mattress pulls me towards him like gravity, but I roll over, brace myself on his lower back with my forearm, and wait it out just like him. His vault suit is unzipped around his chest and tied at his waist, so I feel like skin of his back against my arm, which is also exposed from a rolled-up sleeve. Neither of us mind the bodily contact. You kind of do when you're a kid and are used to people being gentle with you, but that all fades soon enough.
I open my eyes a few minutes later to avoid drifting into sleep again to find that the man got tired of sitting up and is leaning back a bit, bracing his right elbow on my upper thigh. I didn't even feel it apparently, or if I did, my brain didn't tell me it was anything important. Pretty much why it's easy for terrible things to happen around here. Somebody crawls into bed with you holding a knife and you don't even realize what happened until you're bleeding out on the floor.
God, more bad thoughts... I gotta stop doing that.
I peek around the man to clear my mind and get a glimpse of the pileup at the open door. One guy is grabbing the shoulders of people in front of him and trying to climb over, yelling that he has to piss. Others are ignoring him and crossing their arms as they wait. Nobody is standing still. It seems like one person jostles someone and then that person gets antsy and bumps into someone else, and it just runs through the crowd like fire.
"I swear, I'm gonna eat somebody one day," the man leaning on me says. He says it quietly, which is to say that his voice is not quiet at all, but given the already loud volume of the room, I can barely hear him.
I don't know if he's talking to me or any of the fifty people in front of him, but I say something anyway. "Be one hell of a solution."
He grumbles out a laugh at that. I feel it vibrate against my arm. "Don't give Lane any ideas."
It would be pretty ridiculous if Lane took the idea and ran with it. I wonder if human meat even tastes any good. I would be lying if I said I hadn't thought about it. Everyone down here must have.
Food supplies ran out a long time ago, so people back then found a different solution. They kept the lights off in the lower levels to encourage radroaches to move in. We've got a hydroponics station and everything to take care of the fruits and vegetables, but the bulk of protein has to come from those creepy-crawlies. They've never done any real damage because tons of 'em are picked off every day and added to the menu. There's not a lot of meat on one, but when you've got an infestation, there's plenty to go around. Still tastes like shit, though.
Gives you radiation, too, but the Overseers say that's fine because the purified water counteracts it, and a little radiation never did anyone harm. It helps pick off the elderly when their time comes. I think an entire lifetime of eating radroaches is the only thing that can kill you, so if you're not near your death bed, the slight buildup can't hurt you that much. I don't know. My Pip-Boy isn't going nuts, so I figure I'm not that irradiated. Hell, I don't know much about it. Not like the medical and scientist guys do. I'm just a cleaner, which is another nightmare in itself.
"Screw this, I'm makin' a break for it." The man pulls me out of my thoughts as he turns to glance at me.
It's quick, too quick, like he doesn't care and just sees me as Clone #1025, but I'd like to see him as more than that, and my eyes quickly scan over his features before he looks away again. He's older, but not that old, in his early 40s maybe, messy brown hair, stubble on his jaw, green... blue eyes? No, green. ...Fuck.
It doesn't matter. By the time he's standing up, I've forgotten everything about his face. He's no longer any different to me than the asshole still trying to climb over everyone at the doorway.
I watch him as he takes a few steps back before rushing forward suddenly and barreling through the crowd at the door. Some people fall down and immediately get stepped on. Some get pissed off at people around them and start throwing punches. Others freak out, start screaming, and make everything 100 times worse.
The gang member is long gone by the time security elbows through the halls, coming to break it all up.
I just crawl out of bed, step up to the doorway, and wait for my turn to leave the room.
I eat while I clean, just 'cause it's more convenient.
Not that I even need to clean here. Block L's guys are taking care of it, a well-oiled machine, but I still walk around the dining room and pick up trash any of the hundreds could have left behind, just to feel useful.
There are still a shit ton of stragglers shuffling in and sitting here and there. A couple of them sporting bruises on their faces or hands. The runt of the morning rush litter.
When taking a fistful of dirty napkins to the waste container by the door, I spot a guy through the window shoving past people in the hallway and heading right this way, and I pause. "A guy" does not describe him. This particular guy has his jumpsuit unzipped in the front, the sleeves of it tied around his waist. A gang member.
His chest is exposed from his half-on clothing, and his hands are clenched at his sides with red and bloody knuckles. He doesn't even have to shove people out of his way as he moves; they shove around each other to get out of his path.
I almost fumble and drop my half-eaten apple as I turn around, my eyes wide and searching for a place to look inconspicuous. I don't know the man anymore than I know anyone else in the room with me, but every single person in the damn vault knows about the biggest, most dangerous gangs. This dude has got to be the leader of the Blockrunners, the most frightening gang one can ever have an encounter with. They're known murderers, pretty much. The only reason they continue to live up to their gang name is because the Overseers like that they help thin out the population from time to time, and because of that, they're allowed to do whatever the hell they please.
It's complete bullshit, but nobody dares to speak up against it publicly. People who do that don't live much longer.
I walk away from the door at what I hope is a normal pace, clutching my apple and shouldering past a group of women clustered by the counter. One of the servers behind the counter waves his hand, but there's no way to tell if he's gesturing to me or somebody else, so I keep my head down and keep walking.
The place seems crowded as hell all of a sudden. Something bumps into my left leg and holds me down like I just stepped in week old radroach guts before I can make it over to the corner. Small brown eyes meet mine when I look down.
As I sigh, place the remainder of my apple between my teeth to free my hands, and reach down to pick the kid up, the dining room gets considerably more quiet behind me, and I just know that the Blockrunners king is probably getting closer and closer to me with each passing second.
The blonde boy on my hip makes grabby hands for the bit of apple in my mouth, so I let him have it and walk us over to the edge of the counter opposite the door.
"Hey!"
Looks like the server was gesturing to me. He starts to make his way towards me, and my first thought is of how I don't want to speak to him at all. I would rather die than speak to him right now. Guys who willingly choose to work in Block L are always nothing but trouble.
He doesn't make it too far in getting to me, though. Everyone's attention is pulled and captured by the Blockrunners king as he enters the dining room, unnecessarily shoving a woman against the wall whom he could have easily stepped around. It just makes him look like a prick, and it makes my cheeks warm with anger.
I don't give a shit about the nameless woman he shoved; I'm just angry at how he's not even doing this to punish people. He's doing this to show his dominance or something stupid like that. He's probably not even here for food. He's here to let people know their place.
Almost like clockwork, like it was planned out by whatever cruel Gods are watching, the boy on my hip starts to cry. Loudly.
I go into panic mode and bounce him desperately, making shooshing noises, but it does fuck all, and he continues to bawl like we're not at all in the room with a murderous psychopath. One look at him and his flailing hands shows that he dropped his apple slice on the counter, and in his plight of being unable to reach it, had a complete meltdown.
This is the reason I might get beaten to death in front of all these people... Over an apple slice.
My brain can't deal with it. As it struggles to, someone pries the screaming child from my arms and rushes off with him. I think they leave the room or something. I'm not sure.
"Hey..."
The server whispers to me again, his eyes wide. He glances quickly down to the dirty apple slice on the counter, and it makes me feel like a damn fool.
"Well."
The gang leader's voice isn't as deep as I imagined it would be. It's not nearly as threatening. He sounds like, well, a man. Just a man.
"That your brat kid, bitch?"
I burn with anger, but I don't look up at him. I grit my teeth and plant my feet, ready for a fight if this guy wants one. I'm a tougher "bitch" than he thinks.
"You know, I fuckin' hate kids. They just take up space. Eat all my food, suck up all my water," he continues, his voice slow and steady like he's running the show here. Like he's pulling all the strings. You're just a number like the rest of us, asshole.
He had been standing still the whole time while he addressed me, with his arms at his sides like he was waiting for me to try and run so he could grab me. Now, as he starts to walk forward, he happens to step on a man's shoe and almost trips, causing a wave of shouts and violent scrambling for the door from his sudden movement.
It happens in the blink of an eye. The room explodes into chaos like a grenade was just lobbed into the center of it.
The gang leader immediately swings on the owner of the foot and knocks him out cold, but grabs the front of his jumpsuit as he begins to fall and keeps on swinging until his face is bloody.
Several women in front of me take the opportunity to try and run for the exit, but one is so hysterical and frantic that she runs straight into the side of the gang leader. He drops the man and reaches for her, his fingers catching a handful of her hair and yanking her feet off the ground.
Unsurprisingly, the crowd trying to get through the door causes a massive pileup, and people start to go down in bunches as others scramble on their bodies, stomping on their faces and limbs, trying to use the human bodies at their feet as an extra boost to get over the people in front of them.
I stand still and watch it all, in silent shock.
Someone grabs me around the waist, and I almost trip over my own feet as I stumble backwards. Hands yank me around the edge of the counter, shove me to the dirty floor, and cover my mouth.
I shake off the server boy's hand as soon as I realize it's him, gasping with both irritation and surprise. The guy just shakes his head at me and looks away, like he's telling me "not now". Like I'm a child. Regardless, we stay cowering there until the screaming dies down. Eventually, it just simmers out to a quiet roar somewhere down the hall.
"I'm sorry, do you know me?" I hiss out as soon as I don't feel threatened that someone's going to reach over the counter and snatch the heads from our shoulders at the slightest noise.
"Nah," he just says.
He stands without another word and brushes the front of his vault suit off, eyeing the other two servers who had decided to cower as well and not run for the death-trap exit. One is shaking and staring at the floor, while the other crawls over the counter and jogs away.
The room is a mess, I discover when I stand as well. There is blood on the floor around the man who's face is now unrecognizable. The woman is nowhere to be seen, but locks of her long black hair are clearly visible against the white and red checkered floor. A pile of motionless bodies adorn the exit, like a carelessly placed doormat.
I don't know what I feel when I look at the bodies, especially the pile of several at the door. I feel like I should feel... something. I don't though. I don't. They're just like a pile of dead radroaches to me.
"I don't know you," the server says, finally, and I turn to gaze at him. He has dark brown hair, damn near black, and small brown eyes. Young. "But Overseer Walker does."
He holds out his hand to which I instinctively open my palm under. A small key is dropped. "Go at dinner time."
I say nothing, but pocket the key quickly. This is all happening so suddenly, and I want to ask questions, but where would I even start?
"How do- What... How did you even know I would..? How do you know who I am?" I manage to stutter out something resembling a coherent question.
The guy just smiles, small and charming, like he's making fun of me but being polite about it at the same time. "I'm good with descriptions." He reaches out with a finger and pokes three spots on my face, one by my nose and two beneath my eyes. "Birth mark, here. Freckles, here and here. Short brown hair, brown eyes." Then he shrugs and backs up. "I'm just good with that kinda stuff."
He recognized me by a birth mark and freckles... I'm so envious I'm probably turning green. How can he recognize people by faces, and I can't even remember the hair color of the man I slept beside last night?
I want to ask his name, but I don't. I stand there like an idiot for a few seconds, gritting my teeth and probably looking like I'm about to hit him.
"Uh. Remember, during the dinner rush..." he says again, quietly.
"Right," I bite out.
He shifts on his feet and glances over to the door again, sighing softly. "Please, don't spread that this happened in Block-"
"I know."
He meets my eyes again. "Thanks. Well. Good luck, I guess. With... whatever."
What is your name? "Yeah. Thanks. For everything."
When I step around the counter, my legs feel weird when I move them, like they've gone numb, and the sensation only gets stronger as I step over the unfortunate man's body and pick my way through the corpse pile. The soft bodies squish under my boots.
"Wait!"
I wait and look over my shoulder.
"...Was that really your kid?"
He had to know it couldn't possibly be my kid, right? I mean, mothers are killed as soon as kids don't need them. He saw the kid was old enough to gnaw at the apple slice. Right?
"No," I answer.
The guy says nothing else. Just tilts his head and glances down at my feet, at the pile of bodies again.
I hurry down the hallway in the direction of the Block W sleeping quarters, leaving the prone bodies behind me. A long line for one of the bathrooms clogs the corridor like poison in a pair of lungs.
Three Overseers share one office.
I can't even begin to imagine how the hell that would work. I guess it's part of why Overseers don't really last that long. Well, that, and the fact that everyone and their bed partner dreams of becoming Overseer. Personally, I don't really see the glamour of it. It's like people think that becoming Overseer gets you away from everyone else and lets you have power, but anyone with a brain could see that's not true at all. The Overseers have to share just like the rest of us; hell, there are thee of them after all. They share an office, they share their private sleeping quarters (which I've heard only has one bed, so God only knows how that works out), and they share the pile of shit that people throw at them.
Sure there are the three blocks, and each one only oversees their respective block, but as demonstrated before by the lovely Blockrunner leader, blocks are damn near irrelevant. Though the Blockrunners have a rep of being founded and based in Block L, they're seen in every single one of them. Dead people show up in every single one in bulk.
Personally, I'd rather be one of those poor dead people than carry the burden of being an Overseer. Too much pressure. Too much stressful shit. You have zero control over people, other than deciding when the dining rooms open and when to unlock the food storage, but there are plenty of people down here with the skill to break into any one of them. Hell, it's been done a thousand times before.
The only reason someone hasn't killed an Overseer yet is because it's too hard to track Lane, and Jackson and Walker usually stay locked up in the office like the vault is the middle of war and the office is their own personal, protective vault. I don't blame them. You just have to be at the right place and time to see giant fights break out, and then you truly realize that, even if things might be relatively peaceful wherever you are, somewhere out there in another Block, maybe even the room beside you, people are killing each other. People are dying.
"Hi there. Darla?"
It startles me when he says my name. I flinch, hard. You hear another human say your name so rarely, if even at all, and it almost makes you forget you have one.
"Yeah," my voice stumbles out in a hurry.
The Overseer's office is small, much smaller than I'd imagined. There's this circular thingie in the center of it, and a large computer system behind that. Three small chairs are set up around the inside of the circular desk. Papers on the desk, some on the floor. One chair is askew. The lights on the computer monitor are lit up bright. I can't see anything the screen says.
He smiles, and it's soft and gentle. It reminds me of the Block L server boy, but much, much more guarded. Like there's a pane of glass between us. Really there's only a few steps and this weird circle table to separate us. I get the sinking feeling that he's viewing me like I'm some kind of animal.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. Lane checked your name on your Pip-Boy when you were sleeping last night and wrote it down for us."
Fucking Lane, I swear. We're well overdue for a new Overseer, that's for damn sure. One that doesn't do creepy shit like that.
Overseer Walker must sense my distrust, my distaste, because his smile falls a bit, and he begins to step around the circle desk to come closer to me.
"I know. Lane can be a little... overbearing at times. But it was a big help for us that he took your name and a few details about your face. We never would have found you, otherwise."
Of course you never would have found me. You hole yourself up in this office like you're trying to survive a second war. That's why you're talking to me like I'm a child. You have no idea how to talk to one of "them", to one of the savages down in the tunnels and not your sophisticated sidekicks up in the cushy Overseer's office.
"You're a cook in my Block, right?"
I huff. "No. I'm a cleaner." Asshole.
"Ah. I see. Different from what we had on record... Anyway, that won't be a problem. I'll just make some corrections to that later."
There's still a weird smile on his face, oddly warm and caring, despite my glare in his direction. It's creeping me out.
I cross my arms and stare him down, leaning towards him and hoping I look bigger. "Look, if you want something, then say it. Want me to clean your private bathroom? Fine. Want me to change your luxury sheets? Hand 'em over."
His perfect demeanor falters at my sharp words, and he flinches like I had when he said my name. Like he knows I'm right in my accusations.
As he steps fully around the desk to stand directly in front of me, I regard him carefully for the first time. He has very dark brown hair that would certainly look black if the bright lights weren't shining on it and illuminating the hard brown tones. His face is not as young as it's rumored to be, slightly wrinkled and rough looking. He's suppose to be the youngest Overseer, but he looks around 40. Even Lane looks younger than he is.
Did he start that rumor about him being young, or did it just spring from idle lips? Or has stress aged his face beyond his actual age?
I want to ask him about his age, but, even though I'm trying to stand my ground and keep distance, that would just be rude. I don't want to get completely on his bad side just yet.
"I have a different kind of job for you," he says, finally looking away from my eyes. I feel like a weight's been lifted off my lungs.
"Oh yeah? And what makes you think I'm gonna do your dirty work? I'm not killin' any babies for you." Low blow, but I need him to know I'm not going to be pushed around. I'm not just another number to be used like a tool.
This time, he doesn't flinch. It's like he suddenly grows a backbone out of thin air, and he just turns to me and says, "...You're trying to impress me." He says it like it's a fact, straight-faced and even-voiced. His perception pisses me off.
Though I have no intention of leaving, I turn on my heel and take a step towards the door. I can just barely hear the usual riff-raff of the hundreds of dwellers milling around through the thick steel. "I'm not trying to impress you. I'm here, so I've already done that somehow."
I know it's true because I hear no response from behind me, but I soon feel the light weight of his hand on my left shoulder. Nothing else.
This surprise meeting with the Overseer is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. It's been there ever since server boy gave me the key to the office. Why? Why am I even here? I should be out there with the other cleaners, scrubbing up scum and picking up trash and trying to not get caught up in fights and tramplings like everybody else.
What I said was true, though, and we both know it. I've impressed some Overseer, for some unknown reason, and now here I am, standing in an empty room with a smug jackass who probably wants me to do something terrible for him.
I used to like Overseer Walker. That's why I worked in his Block mostly. Jackson's kind of losing her authority, and Lane is losing his god damn mind. I thought Walker was different. I thought he was just a normal person. The odd smile he gave me when he saw me and the gentle hand on my shoulder are telling me otherwise.
If they're all crazies, who the hell am I going to work for now? Which Block am I gonna sleep in at night...
"There are a lot of people here, Darla. Many people crammed into a small space. I'm sure those in the time before us, those that survived the war, had many difficulties in front of them when they came down here. But that is the price of surviving."
His hand leaves my shoulder, and I turn back around to watch him as he makes his way back to the desk. His serious tone has caught my attention. "Sure, it's rough. But all of the vaults are. There were just too many people in America, not enough vaults built. I can tell you that, without a doubt, every other vault is having to deal with the same problems that we are. Every vault is tight and packed and overcrowded. That's what the vaults were made for, after all. To save people. To save thousands of people; millions! The fact that we're alive right now means that's true. Our ancestors survived the complete destruction of the world. And we're surviving it right now."
He looks up at me, but I have nothing to say.
He continues. "It's easy to forget that sometimes. It's easy to think that the vaults are a hell to live in. There's violence and crimes and sometimes, it's just plain hard to get comfortable. I know. I wasn't always an Overseer. I lived down there with everyone else. But we're alive right now, Darla. If we were outside of this vault, we wouldn't be. We wouldn't have a chance in hell out there. Nobody does. We must ensure that we continue to survive. We're just one vault, on the same course as all the others. However... it would appear that we're not doing so well. Lane's numbers are... Well, there are more people in the vault now than there ever were, honestly. Then there ever was intended to be. And the numbers are only rising."
He pauses to sip from a glass of water on the desk. "Really? How many people are there?" I ask, hesitantly. My voice is quiet in the place of the strong voice I was putting on earlier.
Walker clears his throat and glances towards the closed door behind me. "Around 2,800."
My heart stops. It feels like a slap in the face. "What?! But. Only 2,000 people can live in a vault... How did this happen? How do you know for sure?"
Panic starts to seize my limbs like we're all going to die immediately for some reason. I can't even will myself to calm down. 2,800!
Walker answers with a calm, even voice. "My best guess would be that numbers have been on a steady incline since the very beginning, and nobody's really noticed until now. Those who were born when the numbers were lower died off, and the children who are born into the overcrowded world saw the overcrowding as normal. No one's ever done a real count before. No one before Lane."
Lane... I guess his paranoia is good for something after all.
"We can only assume his numbers are much lower than the reality, though. He was bound to miss plenty of people who just never stayed in one place long enough to get tagged. But you get the gist of what I'm saying. And it's starting to become a serious-"
Our attention is drawn to the door of the office sliding open suddenly. A group of around 15 people stand on the other side, some standing in front puffing their chests out like guards and others cowering nervously behind them.
Walker doesn't look nearly as surprised as I am at this intrusion. In fact, he steps forward, opens his arms and welcomes the group inside.
"Ah. We've been waiting for you all."
We have?
"There aren't enough radroaches in the world to feed all these people. And our hydroponics started to fall behind decades ago. We've just never told anyone."
"You're wrong!" I blurt out, probably against my better judgment. Everyone in the group turns to stare at me. "There's plenty of food! I ate food just earlier today. Everyone got fed at the breakfast rush, and everyone's eating at dinner right now."
The room is silent after my words echo around. I'm standing apart from the group while they huddle together like a collective being. My cheeks begin to feel warm with embarrassment until Walker speaks up. "What did you have to eat today?"
"An apple and a forkful of radroach..." I say, doubtful, not sure what he's getting at.
"And did that fill you up?"
I'm silent for a moment as I chew on my lip, not wanting to look stupid for not understanding. "...What is that suppose to mean?"
Several people in the group look down or shake their heads, and it makes me want to shed my skin and crawl under the metal floor. What is such a big deal?
"Darla..." Walker starts, like he's about to tell me I'm terminally ill or something. "That small amount of food is not healthy for a human being. You're malnourished, and you don't even realize it." That hand replaces itself on my shoulder. "Is there a time when you're ever not hungry?"
What the hell is he getting at... "No," I answer truthfully. "But that's normal for everyone!"
A middle-aged man with blonde hair in the group steps towards me, looking overcome with passion. "You're wrong! It's not normal at all! Walker- He showed us! He gave us so much food, we couldn't eat anymore! We didn't want to eat anymore. That's what's healthy. That's what's normal."
I look from the man back to Walker. "...You've been hoarding food?" My voice is layered in disgust and betrayal.
"Only enough to show these people what they're missing. Only enough to nurse them back to health and make them realize. Yes, I have been."
I don't know what to say. My head shakes slowly, saying "no" where my mouth won't.
He doesn't listen. "You will eat with us tonight, Darla. And then I'll let you know what we have planned."
I do end up eating with them. We end up sitting on the floor of the overseer's office, in a circle on the cold metal, and they put a plate piled with radroach meat in front of me. I end up saying nothing and eating until I can't anymore. I feel sick to my stomach, and it hurts.
It hurts.
I end up crying for reasons I'm not exactly sure of. I hold my full stomach, and I start crying, maybe because of the sadness of it all, or of the humor. While trying to survive, we've started hindering ourselves. This is probably the reason the elderly die so quickly, not the radiation. Why men are so angry and quick to kill. Why everyone rushes to feeding time and tramples anything in their way. Who knows what other problems it could be causing.
I practically lick that cool white plate clean, and as the others watch me like hawks, I slowly stop protesting. I stop questioning.
Walker pulls me up from the floor and into a hug, and I fall into him like he is the father I never had. We cling to each other, and he pulls back. He wipes tears off my cheeks with the side of the thumb.
"Shh. We have a plan to change this," he whispers.
I nod without realizing it.
"We plan on poisoning Block J," he breathes, his voice soft and eager. Excited. "Food poisoning. It's estimated that a little over 800 people live and eat there; the exact amount needed to push the population back to normal, healthy levels. We can save ourselves and the future of America."
"That will kill 800 people..."
"That will save the population of this vault. You know what we have to do with those people, right? With their... bodies."
I know. I can't say it. He doesn't, either.
"This will save us," he just says again.
He says it so firmly that I end up believing him. I help him.
People die. Lots. I help clean it up. We all do. That's why he wanted us.
Overseer Jackson dies. Walker never warned her.
The Blockrunner's leader ends up dying, too, with the hundreds of others that eat the infected food along with him, and his gang members kill hundreds of others in a following week-long period of rage and violent chaos. I hide from the massacre with the rest of the group, Walker, and Lane, up in the Overseer's office.
Some nights are rough, because the banging on the metal door and the screams keep us up for hours. I can't sleep. It still doesn't make sense. Over time it all dies down, though. It all dies. I feel like something indescribable inside of me has died as well.
We eat the food given to us quickly, trying not to think too hard about it.
Walker personally escorts me out whenever I have to use the bathroom, and every time he does, those metal hallways are a little less clogged then the last time, a little less crowded and a little less familiar. People move out of my way now, because they can, because there's space to. There's less bruises on people's arms and faces and hands. Newborn children don't seem to cry as hard.
The men with their jumpsuits tied around their waists watch the world like silent hawks waiting to devour it. They're bigger now. Thicker. I swear I recognize one as Walker is holding my wrist and dragging me back to the Overseers office one day - our normal routine. The gangster's green eyes stare into mine, messy brown hair framing his face, and I can't help but stare back.
Tears leak from my eyes as soon as our eyes meet, honestly. Like they've been building in my tear ducts since the first person died, drowning in their own vomit and burning fever from the poisoning, all those weeks ago. I just start crying like I had when I ate all that food that made my stomach hurt. Needless to say, my stomach doesn't hurt anymore when I eat too much. It hurts as soon as I think about the act of eating in general.
The Blockrunner takes a step forward, and Walker yanks hard.
"Darla!" he hisses, his voice as sharp as a knife. His hand twists my wrist in a way that makes me feel like he's going to break it or something. "Come on!"
The man in the gang reaches out and grabs my other wrist, but doesn't pull. It's a firm, determined grip. Walker has stopped and is hissing more things at me now, but I can't bring myself to look at anything but green.
He threatens to leave me if I don't snap out of it, but his words don't really compute to me. Two young men run down the hallway in a wild, screaming chase, followed by security, and it distracts every one of us.
By the time I can't hear them anymore, there's a heavy arm around my shoulders, I'm pressed against the warm side of a human body, and my feet are leading me back down the hallway from where I came. Our hips bump against each other with every other step we take.
"What's got you so sad, cutie? Somebody tryna make you do something you don't want to?"
I reach up to grab his hand helplessly, my fingers sliding along the smooth screen of his Pip-Boy before scrambling for his fingers. They're so big compared to mine.
"I didn't mean to..." I gasp out, my eyes focused on the gray floor. The lump in my throat is choking me. "I didn't... It wasn't worth it." I couldn't possibly explain to him what I'm talking about.
Two of his fingers push at the side of my jaw and force me to look up into his face. There's a light smirk on his lips.
"Oh, I bet," he drawls with a chuckle.
It hits me that he thinks I'm talking about something sexual, but it doesn't annoy me like it normally would have. If anything, it makes me cling to him tighter. It gives me an image of two people, close and intimate and alive and happy, and it makes me realize that such a fantasy is exactly that: a fantasy.
For the first time ever, I genuinely wish I had just died with the bombs.
"You got somewhere to sleep tonight, hun?"
Violence around the vault unsurprisingly got worse as people started to die. Nobody really knew the source of the plague, obviously, so some took the initiative to start killing anyone who coughed, sneezed, or even looked weak or sickly, hoping to stop the spread. Even more so than before the poisoning, it's common to go to bed and never wake up now. Of course, I don't know from first-hand experience because of my position in the Overseer's room, but I've overheard the remaining two Overseers talking about the rise in violence.
If I don't leave now and run back to the Overseer's office, if I choose to stay down here, I could very likely die.
"Well, do ya?" he asks again, squeezing my shoulder.
We step over a splotch of fresh blood on the floor that needs cleaning up.
"No," I finally whisper. "No."
That night, we lay side by side, and I cup his face in both of my hands and try to memorize every small detail of it. One of his heavy legs is thrown over both of mine, and his arm is around me. As he closes his eyes and starts to sleep, my mind wanders to the thought of him dying and me having to eat his flesh a day later, and I start crying again. It wakes him up, which makes me feel terribly bad, but he only grumbles a bit and pries one of my hands away from his cheek. I place it back a second later.
"You're fucked up, aren't ya," he mumbles to me, closing his eyes again. "They really fucked you up."
I don't know what to say to that.
My hand trails down to his neck after he starts to snore, and I stare through the darkness and try to imagine what life he would have lived before the bombs. Probably a nice husband to some girl, with kids and a small white house like in the pictures of Pre-War living. He would probably work in one of those buildings that reached the sky and would go home in a vehicle he bought for traveling across America with his family. Or something like that.
We eat together in the morning, face to face and silent. No one dares to come near us. I watch the meat pass his lips and slide down his throat. They chop it up so tiny and mix it in with the radroach meat so well, there's no way you could tell the difference. I'm thankful for that, at least.
I never see Overseer Walker ever again. The worry that he could decide to poison a batch of food again makes me paranoid for days, but the fear of death isn't strong enough to make me seek him out again. I never see anyone from that group of conspirators, either.
I continue to follow the Blockrunner like we're attached at the hip, and he doesn't really seem to mind. He never touches me weird or tries anything.
When he meets up with other gang members later in the evening and they ask him who the hell I am, he shrugs and just tells them that I'm "off limits". He even lets me come with them when they beat a group of men to death with their bare hands, for reasons I'm sure are trivial, while I press my back hard against the cool wall and watch from afar like they're putting on a play for my amusement. He holds out his fists for me afterwards, like trophies, covered in bruises and blood.
One night, after he falls asleep, I gather enough courage to sneak a peek at the Pip-Boy on his wrist.
I stare at the name David, glaring up at me with bright green letters, until he stirs, wakes up to take a piss in the middle of the night, and comes back, and then I stare at it some more.
"David..."
The word trickles from my lips before I can help myself. His head shoots up like he's heard a gunshot, and his hand finds its way around my neck.
"Overseer Walker is a murderer," I whisper in response.
I don't know if I expect it to do anything - he is a murderer, too, after all - but, somehow, it makes him pause, makes him lean back and lay down again. His hand remains on my throat, but it's like how mine did when we first slept together. Soft and resting.
"Hell, girl, everybody fuckin' knows that," he grumbles. "Don't call me by my name. Unless..."
He might be considering asking me my own name, but he doesn't. He just grabs my wrist and wrenches my Pip-Boy in front of his face, tapping on a button to make the machine light up.
"Darla," he says it with a grin, like he's bested me. I'll admit, it does make me flinch almost as horribly as he did when he says it.
He lays back down to go to sleep, his arm settling around me, but I can't just leave it like this. I can't. I need... something.
"Overseer Walker murdered your leader."
In the slowly dimming green light from the screen of my Pip-Boy, his eyes open again.
It's horrible down here. It really is. The thought that vaults all over America are going through the same thing makes me sick to my stomach, even more so than the thought of eating a meal here. I don't know much about America; I was born in the vault after all, so I don't know if it was once a place of peace and happiness, or if nothing has changed and it has always been a place of violence and misery. Maybe it was a mix of both, and that worked out somehow.
I don't blame the people who made the vaults. How could I? They only had people's best interests in mind: survival, their future, life.
I don't know what to do about it. It doesn't make sense to me.
There's a revolt a few days after I let David know, people storming the upper levels, hundreds of people battering away at the Overseer's door. They camp out there, clogging the hallway and stairwell, thinking that he'll have to come out someday. They're right.
They see a young server trying to carry food up for the group holed up, and he's being beaten to death with his own tray within a matter of seconds.
Overseer Walker spouts all kinds of desperate things over the intercom. How we're ungrateful for him, how we would be dead without him, how he knows who the real traitor is. He gives an accurate description of me, but doesn't once say my name, though. I suspect he's forgotten it.
The breach happens at night. Everyone inside dies. They drag Walker's body out into the spacious entryway, by the broken door, and prop him up over the railing.
Overseer Lane has barricaded himself somewhere, and nobody hears word of him for days. When he does come out, he's sick with starvation and dying, but most people have lost interest anyway and just shout insults as they let him hobble around them to one of the dining rooms.
One of the taller, bigger Blockrunners declares himself the new Overseer over the intercom, and I can tell he's mostly fucking around, but people slowly start to follow his orders anyway, like they have nothing else to cling to.
After the night of the breach, I didn't see David for two days, but one day, at a dinner rush, with my mouth full of human meat, he picked me out of the crowd, grabbing my wrist and pulling me aside.
He held out his fists for me, like trophies, covered in Walker's dried blood, and I reached out and wrapped both my hands around his, like I had nothing else to cling to.