Chapter 1: For Her Father

I looked from left to right trying to figure out what happened to the kid, we had only been in the Capitol Building for maybe 10 minutes before we got caught up in a battle between the Talon Company and Super Mutants. There were bodies everywhere but they were all either mutants or dressed in the black Talon armor. I ran forward through a double door with my hunting rifle ready to fire. I stopped as soon as I went through because I heard some footsteps and turned to my right just in time to see a merc and dodge the shot from his pistol. I fired a shot from my rifle and it hit him right between the eyes and he dropped. Right when I saw the wall behind him turn red I went the opposite way down the hall and saw someone take the corner in front of me. I slowly rounded the corner and saw it was the kid from Vault 101.

"Hey kid! Over here!" I whispered loudly.

The kid turned around and ran back towards me.

"Get down!" I yelled.

She dropped down and I fired twice at the Mutant behind her, two shots to the head, one in his left eye and one in his forehead, brains splattered across the wall and floor.

"What the fuck are you doing? You were supposed to wait for me!" I yelled at her.

"I couldn't find you and figured you'd want me to get the papers if you couldn't!" The kid shot back at me.

"Fine. Whatever. We need to stick together if we want to get passed everyone and grab them." I told her.

We were sent here by the Brotherhood of Steel, they had sent in two of their own people to retrieve important documents about the "Enclave." Unfortunately, that was a few days ago. They sent us in to hopefully find them and if not at least find the papers, they said without them, the wasteland could be a whole new place, and not in a good way for us.

"According to the Brotherhood, their last transmission with the Knights was north of here through those doors." I pointed to the double doors down the hallway.

We started towards the door when we heard a bunch of gunshots and a huge slam followed by a merc flying through the doors. His side was completely crushed in and blood was coming out of his mouth, we looked at each other and proceeded over to the door, what we saw inside was something I thought I would never see again…

Before we get too ahead of ourselves, lets go back a few weeks ago to when I first met the kid from Vault 101. You know what? Even before that, let me tell you a little about myself. My name is Vincent; everyone just calls me Vince though, and I am also from Vault 101. After many hard years of adventuring and fighting I was muscular and my hair was starting to gray, you could still tell though that my natural hair color was black. I had a messy head of hair with a scraggly looking beard on my face, everyone knew me and I wasn't someone to mess with but I was never the one looking for a fight.

Almost twenty years ago the vault doors were opened to let in a wandering doctor and his baby girl, during that time I was 21 years old and was very bored of the life within the vault. The G.O.A.T. exam said I was to be a barber and after a few years of that it can get very tiresome. So, when the vault doors were open my girlfriend and I headed out into the vast wasteland.

We ended up in a town called Megaton where I met two members of the Brotherhood of Steel. We talked and they said they were not looking for recruits at the moment but to check back soon. A few years of adventuring later my girlfriend had been killed by Super Mutants and I became a Knight in the BoS. With them I had been all over the Capitol Wasteland. I helped defeat a large group of Super Mutants in an area now called Canterbury Commons, defended the so called Republic of Dave from a Deathclaw attack, helped kill two weird, glowing ghouls harassing Megaton the BoS called "Glowing Ones," and during this time I had been moved into a special unit called Light of the Wastes.

I had been with the BoS for about 15 years before I went into a semi-retirement, I didn't have to parade around with them anymore but if my help was ever needed I could be called upon. I settled down in a decent shack in Megaton and sat around most of my days for about a year, that's when the kid from 101 showed up…

It was a quite day, everyone was doing the usual, be it managing their stores or just drinking at Moriarty's. I was sitting at a little table I had set up outside of my front door, it was angled so I could see the whole town perfectly from my elevated position, and watching everyone walking around and just relaxing when I looked out towards the main entrance and saw someone walk in wearing a blue jumpsuit. I stood up and walked over to the railing to see what was going on, I recognized the jumpsuit as one issued to all residents of a Vault- Tec vault. Lucas Simms, the towns' sheriff and mayor, walked over to the newcomer and started a conversation, after about a minute he pointed towards the bomb that was in town and then Moriarty's and the two shook hands.

I watched her walk towards the bomb, she was about 5'9" with red hair tied up kind of like Moira Brown's, and she was kind of scrawny but looked athletic. As she was examining the nuclear bomb Megaton was built around I headed into Moriarty's to wait for her to come in. It was only a few minutes later when the door opened and she entered the establishment. She walked over to Gob and struck up a conversation; she seemed very well mannered and didn't say a thing about his face, something almost no one has ever done before. I heard her ask if he had seen a man pass through here recently and he said she would have to ask Moriarty about it.

"What do ye want from me?" Colin asked, irritated by the girl.

"Have you seen a man come by here recently? I'm looking for him, he's my dad. We're from the vault nearby, Vault 101." She replied in an innocent tone.

Too much information, I thought to myself, Moriarty will never tell her anything now unless he gets something in return.

"So you be James' daughter then? First him, now you? What a surprise!" Colin said in a sarcastic tone.

"So you've seen him then?" The girl asked Colin.

"Maybe I have, maybe I haven't? What's it worth to you? I'm thinking…100 caps?" Colin said to her with a chuckle.

"But I don't have 100 caps! I just got here!" She replied, her face was turning red now.

"Aye, that's too bad, isn't it?" Colin said as he walked into the back room.

The girl seemed pretty flustered and walked over to a table near me and took a seat, she seemed to be contemplating her next move. As she was sitting at her table a man I've seen before, Burke I think, approached her, he was wearing a dingy looking suit with a fedora and sunglasses. I also noticed that at his waist was a 10mm pistol, it also had a silencer attached to it.

So he could do all of his dirty work quietly, I thought to myself. I looked up slightly so I could see as well as hear the whole conversation but still look like I was minding my own business just drinking some whiskey.

"I couldn't help but overhear you're looking for someone?" The man asked her.

"Yes, his name is James, he's from Vault 101 and he's my father." The girl replied.

"Well, I'm pretty sure I saw a man pass through here wearing the same jumpsuit as you." He replied back taking a seat at her table.

"Could you tell me anything about where he was going?" The girl asked eagerly.

"I could…but first I need something from you…" The man said then leaned forward to whisper to her.

I could see she was a bit surprised and confused but shook her head in agreement. The man slipped something to her and proceeded to walk out the door. She was looking around to make sure no one was eavesdropping, I returned to my bottle of whiskey before she saw me looking at her. She stood up and walked out of the saloon and that was the last I saw of her until nightfall.

A few hours later…

It was late and most of the residents of Megaton were at home either sleeping or seeing how many caps they had made today. I was sitting out at my table again when I heard the splash of water and knew someone was near the bomb. I stood up and walked over to the railing and looked down, the girl from 101 was tinkering with the bomb. I followed the walkway down and proceeded to sneak up on her to see what she was doing. She looked very confused and had the panel to the bomb open with a strange remote in her hand; she looked like she was trying to connect something to the bomb.

"Having a little trouble with something, kid?" I said while walking out from the shadows.

The girl jumped and whatever was in here hand fell into the water causing a little spark and some smoke to rise from it.

"Not anymore…"She said quietly looking down at her only hope to find her father.

"I heard you wanted to find your dad but what were you doing? Burke told you to do something to the bomb, didn't he?" I asked her.

"He wanted me to help remove this "eyesore" from the wasteland, he said his employer was sick of looking at it…"She replied.

"Well I'll tell you, I knew that Burke was no good. I know you want to find your father but you were going to blow up an entire town?" I said, before she could reply I continued, "Well we'll just have to give Burke a little visit and try to find out what he knows." I finished.

With the girl following we made our way up to Burke's little shack he had in Megaton. I knocked and there was no reply so I forced the door open, the room was empty except for a few empty bottles of random liquor and some paper on the table. I took the paper and started to read, there was nothing of real importance until the last page. The last page looked like a map; it marked Megaton, Super Duper Mart, RoboCo Factory, and a place called Tenpenny Tower with a little star next to it.

I showed the girl the map and said, "Guess where we're going?"

She looked excited, at first I decided to help her out because of the threat Burke and his employer were to the town I now lived in. She didn't know but I knew exactly where her father went, I figured this would be a good excuse if anyone asked about me going to Tenpenny Tower once my overall goal was completed. Ultimately though, this girl was about to bring me on a whole new adventure I would have never dreamed about in all of my days of being an explorer of the wastes...