Shadows Of The Great War, Part 1: Until We Meet Again

By C. Mage

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I'm the only one left.

We never should've taken that run.

It started with the call from our fixer, Lisa. She had a job for us, a Mr. Johnson with a monkeywrench job. She'd set up the meet at the Alabaster Maiden, nine at night, tonight. Whoever the Johnson worked for, they needed some serious sabotage done, so we needed to be loaded for piasma.

I'm Darkma...okay, "Sleeper". I liked the other handle better, but then, I've always been into comicbook superheroes, and i thought "Darkman" sounded cooler. Problem is, when you run the shadows, you don't get the luxury of picking your own name. They called me "Sleeper", because Icer and Heloquin were elven and Stone was a dwarf, making me the only un-Awakened member of the crew.

What? You were expecting Shakespeare?

It didn't change the fact that I dressed like I belonged in a comicbook. No, no spandex combat uniform. I went for the pulp look: all black clothing, long coat, engineer work boots, and my signature, a wide brimmed hat. As street sams went, I was definitely in the "well-dressed" category. No obvious chrome on me, but I've been running the shadows for six years, and I've had some work done. Wired reflexes, to give me the speed I needed, plus a reflex trigger to make sure I didn't shoot anyone who threw me a surprise party.

Once was enough.

Muscle enhancement, giving me the power I needed to take on trolls and win. Bones laced with titanium to provide support for the muscles. Headware like cybereyes and cyberears. And my personal favorites, foot-long cyberspurs in my arms, when I want to get up-close-and-personal.

I was actually becoming the superhero I wanted to be.

Icer was a decker, and he could crunch numbers like nobody else could. There was an art to his craft, more than just mathematics, which made him unstoppable when he needed to get things done. Heloquin was a mage, with a real "dark clown" look to him. He'd gone into all kinds of places, all kinds of different planes of existence, and one day, he went a little too far. Heloquin went somewhere people weren't meant to go, and he came back different.

Likes-eating-his-meat-raw-and-bloody different. But, as distasteful as his new eating habits, and other habits, were, Heloquin was still my friend, and I don't ditch my friends. Some people have made comparisons between us and how Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday stuck together.

And then there was Stone, our street shaman. She was a force of nature, quite literally, when she wanted to be, and not just with magic. She knew guns and how to really make guys like the Yaks and the mob want to rethink their life choices. She was the only woman I knew who carried duct tape in eight different colors. And she wasn't shy about using them.

We'd been running the shadows for a long time, so when we heard about the job, we knew it wasn't going to be a cakewalk going in, so we made sure we had the equipment we needed before going to the meet. Just in case. Once we had the gear stowed in our vehicles, we headed for the meet.

Time to get paid.

The Alabaster Maiden was a wizzer hangout, a good place for runners to go in if they want some privacy for meets, but good security, since every mage and shaman worth their wands had watcher spirits keeping an eye out for trouble, both inside and out. The owner knew me and the others through Stone and Heloquin, so she waved us through. We headed for one of the back rooms, expecting to wait for the Johnson as he, or she, sized us up from some hidden spot. Imagine our surprise when we found Mr. Johnson waiting for us with a couple of cybered-up security guards. That meant the client was eager, or desperate.

And that meant more nuyen. Better chance to pay us what we're actually worth.

The Mr. Johnson was a woman, tailored suit, Someone Important, or someone trying to look that way. She started even before we took our seats at the negotiating table. "I need your team to take out a lab. It's owned by Aztechnology." She waited a few moments to let that sink in, wait for first refusals. A fair consideration, Aztechnology was a big company, and going up against meant serious heat if there was any blowback. "They're doing cutting edge research, but the people I work for want them to suffer a major setback. Think you can do the job?"

"For that kind of damage, that kind of deniability, we're talking major nuyen." I usually took the lead during negotiations, since my time in the shadows netted me a reputation for being a straight shooter, in more ways than one. Plus, I was a big, intimidating frakker and I knew it. Even before getting cybered up, I was a hair under seven feet tall. Adding the cyber made me look even more formidable. "What are you offering?"

"Twenty-five, each, half now, half on delivery."

"Fifty. Half now."

"Thirty. And this needs to be done tonight."

"Forty-five. And only because we don't like the Azzies."

"Thirty-five."

"Forty-five. And if the next words out of your mouth aren't an agreement, I start going HIGHER instead of lower."

She looked me in the eyes and I gave her my best look, the cybereyes glowing red. We stared each other down for a few minutes, then she sighed. "Fine. Forty-five, twenty up front."

"Twenty-five."

"...done." she seemed resigned, but I knew it was a sham. Someone that desperate brought more money to the table to get things done, and like all corporate types, she was probably running on an expense account. She wasn't negotiating about how much to pay us, she was negotiating to see how much she could skim off the top for herself. "But it needs to be done by four am next morning."

"Done." I smiled. "Now, pay us. That will make us contracted employees instead of the competition."

She frowned, probably because I knew she was reaching for the files on the lab. Rookie mistake. You NEVER give out particulars without a commitment. She quickly made up four certified credsticks and and tossed them to each of us in turn. Me last. Yeah, she didn't much care for me. Suited me just fine. Wasn't like we were going steady.

"What have you got on the facility?" I asked, as if I didn't know how eager she was to get this done.

"It's outside the city, completely underground." She took the folder she'd been reaching for out of her briefcase and slid it across the table at me. "I've got floor plans, the location, but no access. You'll need to get that yourself," she added, probably patting herself on the back that she was throwing us what she thought was a curveball.

"Icer, what are we seeing here?" I showed him the blueprints, my eyes never leaving the Mr. Johnson.

Icer looked them over carefully, making little "hmmm" noises here and there. "Whatever they're working on, it's a huge power sink. This could be a small fusion reactor. All of it is leading to this chamber here, so whatever's here is the paydata."

"Fusion reactor? What kind of yield?"

Icer smiled. "Small. If it goes critical, it'll turn the lab to slag, but the nuclear damage would be limited to a few hundred yards. Most of it would be contained underground, but if it went critical, you're looking at the lab being destroyed, but the neutron exposure would irradiate the area. It'd be a PR disaster, and we could make it look like an accident. Goodbye lab, hello bad press for the Azzies, and nobody'd ever find us."

"Providing that we get this done before security gets wind of us. Look at the way this is set up. One entrance, one exit. We go in there, we're in a bottle." Stone looked up at me. "This is insane."

"Do you want out?" I asked.

"Are you kidding?" Stone smiled. "I'm looking forward to it. Besides, you guys would be chalk outlines without me."

"Any physical security outside?" I asked our client's go-between.

"Almost none. The main security of the place is that it's so hard to find. Without knowing about it firsthand, all you'd see is a small clearing in a forest. The workers live on-site, any supplies needed are flown in by chopper. It's the only way they've been able to make it work."

"Well, it won't be working for long. Come on, chummers. It's been HOURS since I blew anything up." We packed up and left, but during the planning, I noticed the Mr. Johnson smiling, but I couldn't tell if it was satisfaction, or something more.

I was confident we'd be able to get out of this. If she did decide to frag us over, there wouldn't be a place on this EARTH she'd be able to hide from me.

We got to the location, taking a van and parking it a mile out, going the rest of the way on foot. We made it to or parking place just before midnight. Chronometers were synchronized and we went silent the rest of the way in. It wasn't long before we came upon the first indications we were on the right track.

A pack of hellhounds were in the area, Aztechnology was opting for biological security. A thermographic scan and dual assensing showed the hellhounds were chipped for control, but not cybered to enhance them in any way. That meant they were a roving patrol. We still had an hour in our timeline before we needed to be at the lab, but we needed half that just to get there.

Finally, just before we started thinking to risk using silencers on our weapons, they moved off to the north. We waited, then moved forward. I took point since I was the most likely to survive anything someone could throw at me. Between my armored clothing and my natural durability, I'd been able to survive attacks that would've reduced most people to chunky salsa.

Still, that stuff SMARTS.

We made it to the location seven minutes ahead of schedule. "Icer, see about finding that door. Everyone else, split up, ten meters out, prone. I lay down to cover Icer as he worked, Stone and Heloquin heading in opposite directions as I broke out the sniping rifle. I had her up in record time and smartlinked in. Anything within 1200 yards was dead meat.

"Got it," came the whisper over the commlink in my head from Icer's subvocal mike. I turned my head slightly, seeing a large section of the grass part and slide to the sides. Those were BIG doors. Beg enough to let tanks through. If someone had satellites on us, this could get ugly.

"In. Now." I slung the rifle on my back and took out my Predator IIs as we went in, close the door behind us as the lift lowered us deeper into the lab. "Icer, access." He nodded and went to work, preparing to pop the air vent coming up. When it did, her opened the hatch, moving in, leading the way for the rest of us.

We got in just in time. The lift stopped and from the sound of it, a dozen men had been waiting. "What the...dammit, it's just another response time drill. All right, guys, you know the procedure, head topside, check the area, shoot anything that moves, come back down. How many of these damn things do we have to do?"

I told the others using hand signals to move deeper inside. Once we got to a place where we knew we wouldn't be heard, Icer pulled up the map. As he did, an idea occurred to me. "Check personal emails. Find out what other drills these schlubs have had to do…"

We dropped down into a supply station and planned our next move. The Azzies, with their usual paranoia, have been running drills to make sure the staff knew what to do, no matter what. However, instead of running the drills once every two or three weeks, they've been running almost every single day.. Security drills, fire drills, assault drills, even drills for what happens if the reactor fails. And that gave me an idea. "Icer, what drill would get this place emptied in a hurry?"

"Easy. The reactor drill. Everyone's required to head to the lift. If it's a real emergency, the lift will rise and get them out of the lab."

"How much time will that give us?"

"If they get to the lift and wait, I can set the lift to go up as if the reactor WAS going critical. That'll confuse them long enough for us to do the job."

"Exit strategy?"

Icer checked the map. "Here, but it isn't ideal. Emergency vents for the reactor, but they're too small."

"We could always bogart some of the guard's uniforms and just move out last." Stone picked up one of the uniforms. "They have them in dwarf sizes."

"Nice to know Aztechnology's an equal-opportunity oppressor. Okay, Heloquin, Stone, you two and I are going to 'borrow' a few of the guards. Should be easier since half of them are outside…"

So far, so good. We subdued four of the guards, brought them back to our 'base camp' and took their credentials, then put their uniforms on over our own...which brought us to our first problem. "Sleeper, you're going to have to stay here. No offense, but you're going to stick out. I've checked through the security roster and nobody here is over six foot two."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Just until the halls are cleared." Heloquin patted my shoulder. "First casualty of battle, you know that, Sleeper."

"Right. Well, make it quick. I want to be out of here LONG before I gain the ability to glow in the dark."

"Don't worry. We'll break into a vending machine for you, we know how much you need to eat for your bioware." Stone grinned.

"Ha frakkin' ha."

One of the problems with cybernetic mods, I thought as I waited there, is that constantly having the time in my vision makes it go a frag-ton slower. It was taking far too long, and I began to wonder if something went wrong. Then I reminded myself that this was a shadowrun, of course something went wrong. I checked the plans that Icer gave me, trying to see how close I was to the reactor…

I heard footsteps and prepared myself, both pistols out and ready, and the door opened to reveal three people in guard uniforms, one of them a dwarf. "Sleeper, it's us," Stone said quickly. "We're ready to start the party. And there WILL be dancing."

"Good. Don't wait on my account, we're 23 minutes behind schedule. You got a disguise for me?"

"Yeah, you'll love it," Heloquin said in a tone I didn't much like. "We found something that would fit you and would be a perfect disguise. It's waiting in the main lab."

"Then let's get started." Icer was already pulling up a holographic screen, tapping a few places on the screen. "What's the score?"

"Standard procedure. When the temperature in the fusion reactor gets to a certain temperature, everyone evacuates to the lift. There's a delay while the system tries to scram the reactor, giving people time to escape, then closes a series of blast doors to minimize the damage. What I'm doing is telling the reactor's computers to lie to the technicians...fooling them into thinking the reactor is having the worst case of 'indigestion'..." He tapped one last button and klaxons started going off, along with spinning red lights. "...ever." he finished with a smile. "Stay here while we 'help' the technicians escape."

I was about to say something when they drew back and closed the door on me. Great. All dressed up and no one to shoot. Was starting to think I brought all this C-12 for the hell of it. I was ready for a firefight and the way things were going, I wouldn't need to fire a shot.

I had to admit, I was somewhat disappointed. And it got me thinking. Things were going WAY too smoothly. True, we managed to get in without being detected. Icer would probably disagree...hmmm. "Icer," I radioed, "just how hard was it to get into the system?"

"System was a stone cold bitch to get through. The ICe in this system is blacker than a CEO's heart. Why?"

"Was starting to think things were going too well."

"Frak that. I almost got flatlined getting into this system. You're just disappointed you didn't get to shoot anyone. We'll be done in a few minutes."

"Right." Oksy. Maybe it was just a matter of perspective, but I still couldn't shake the fact that this was way too easy. I made a mental note to keep an eye on things, because this run wasn't over until we we back at my squat, tossing back the third round of beer.

The door opened twelve minutes later. "Come on, Sleeper, what you waiting for, the end of the world?" I stepped out and looked around, then followed them as we hustled through empty labs and hallways.

We got into the main lab, which gave us a straight shot to the reactor. I stopped as I saw an archway hooked up to all kinds of machines. "What the drek were they DOING in here?"

"Sleeper, you're over here."

I looked to where Heloquin was pointing and oh FRAKKIN' DREK. It was a gurney with a biohazard-sealed body-bag draped over it. "You gotta be kidding me."

"Sorry, Sleeper," Icer snickered, "but it was the only thing we could find in your size!"

"Joke later. Where are we at?"

Icer pulled up the display. "I can get the reactor to overload, it'll go critical in approximately eleven minutes."

"Get started." I looked around at the machinery as Icer went to work, preparing the "accident" yet to come. As I did, I started realizing what it was I was looking at. "Guys...look at these notes. These guys were working on trying to get in touch with other realities. This thing's a 'pan-dimensional bridge' according to the files, here. Looks like someone was either planning an escape...or redefining the words, 'hostile takeover'."

"Sleeper, enough science-fiction!" Heloquin sighed. "Just get into the bag."

"Fine, geez, what do I know?" I look up as I hear metal sliding on metal back the way we came. "Uh, Icer...don't you think you should wait until we've managed to leave first?"

"It's not me! Someone's overriding the controls!"

"WHAT?" Stone demanded. "Then shut down the reactor!"

Icer starting tapping as the deck's control board. "I...can't."

"Talk to me, Icer!"

"The reactor's at the point of no return. In eight minutes, this things going to blow." He looked up at me helplessly. "Sleeper...I can't stop it and I can't open the doors."

I KNEW things were going too smoothly. "Any way we can blast through the doors?"

"They're called 'blast doors' for a reason, Sleeper," Stone said crossly. "And you saw the plans." She looked at the other two men in the chamber. "We're hosed."

I turned to the machinery I'd been eyeing before. "Maybe not. Icer, you've got five minutes to figure out how this works."

"On it!"

Heloquin stared at me. "Please tell me that you don't think this will actually WORK, do you?"

"The table is cleared for better ideas, Hel, so if you got 'em, let's hear 'em."

"Okay, Sleeper...I'm powering it up." icer looked up as the archway lights began to flicker, then oscillate as a shimmering appeared in the doorway.

"Any idea where we're going?" I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

"No clue. The only record of anything is a point of contact called, 'Alpha'. They'd made contact with it, but hadn't sent anyone through."

I looked through the shimmer to see something else just beyond. It looked like the interior of a room, but it wasn't brightly lit, and I saw bedroom furniture. The walls, floor and ceiling looking like it might've been the inside of a military complex or some kind of base, but right now, we couldn't afford to be picky. The countdown sat at less than two minutes and it was starting to get hot in here. "All right, everyone through, fast!"

"We don't know what's on the other side!" Stone said with more doubt in her voice than I'd ever heard before.

"Well, on this side is going to be a fission reaction, Stone. Our chances might not be great on that side, but they're frak-all here! GO!"

Stone growled at me and ran through the doorway, Icer and Heloquin following. I went in last with fifty seconds left to go. As we went through the doorway, I felt pins and needles all over my body and activated my low-light vision. We were all on the other side, but I didn't stop, heading for the bedroom door and opening it. "COME ON, get moving, because this room's about to get one helluva DRAFT!"

We got out of there, moving into a hallway that had seen better days, continuing to run down the hallway to another set of doors. I pressed the button to open it and we made it through, the door closing behind us. Less than a second later, I felt a massive shift in the floor as the door behind us seemed to flex, then the door glowed a dull red.

We got out of there, heading through another hallway and not stopping until there were at least two more doors between us and whatever nuclear inferno was going on behind us. We allowed ourselves a few minutes to sit down and breathe. We seemed to be in some sort of break room, with tables and chairs, some plates, a few coffee mugs, but it was clear that this place hadn't been used for a long time.

"All right...I think we made it." I stood up. "Heloquin, Stone...what do you get from this place? Can you go astral?"

Heloquin closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened his eyes again. His eyes went wide, then he shut them again. "No...no, nononono…!"

"What?" Icer demanded.

"Something….really horrible happened…." He shook his head.

"Okay, until we find out more about this place, stay out of the astral and no magic. We are completely in the dark here. Come on. This place has to have some information about where we are, books at the least."

"I think I got something here. Look."

I walked around the corner to see a set of stairs and some signs, with words on them in English. "Overseer", "Atrium", "Schoolroom", and "Exit". "Okay, good news, we're somewhere that uses English. Let's see where this goes."

We made it to the Overseer's office, but not before we ran into some of the local pests.

We were halfway down the hallway when three roaches came out and started moving towards us. Roaches we'd seen before...except THESE roaches were the size of small dogs! They didn't even seem afraid of us until I put my foot down. Literally. "Okay...giant roaches. Great."

Stone shivered. "I'm starting to wonder if we weren't better off back where we were."

"Stone, we would've needed SPF seven billion back there. Let's not panic just yet."

The Overseer's office was occupied by a large desk, some lockers, file cabinets, some display screens, a computer terminal...and a skeleton wearing some sort of wrist computer. "Icer, the terminal, Stone, Heloquin, the files. I'll check out the fashion accessory here."

They nodded and went to work. Well, not immediately. Icer took one look at the terminal and stared. "Fastjack's Feces...you gotta be kidding me!"

"Too advanced?" I asked, walking over to where Icer was, looking at a terminal that had a dark screen with amber lettering displayed on it.

"Too PRIMITIVE. Monochrome screen? This thing's a dinosaur." He checked it over for plugs, shaking his head. "Definitely not compatible with my deck or my datajack. I'm going to have to do this the old-old-OLD-fashioned way. Gimme a few minutes." He sat down, cracked his knuckles and went to work.

"Anyone else got anything?"

"Yeah. Some textbooks." Stone planted them on the desk. "And you ain't gonna like the subject. Based on what I've read so far, history took a massive step to the right after the bombs were dropped on Japan back in World War Two."

I sat down on a nearby couch. "Lay it on me."

"After that, there was a sudden surge of interest in nuclear power." She thumbed through the pages. "It became the primary source of energy in the United States, prompting considerable advances in technology. Fusion-powered cars. Commercially-available robots. But there's one thing that didn't get developed…" She looked up from the book. "Our friend the transistor."

"Wait...if nobody came up with the transistor, how did they manage to get robotics?"

"Looks like it took a while...but they came up with alternatives. A different kind of technology...and there was a greater emphasis on optimizing software. Building AIs here was considerably easier, and they came up with giant leaps forward…" She kept going through the pages. "Oh DREK…!"

"What?"

Stone looked up, her face pale. "No Awakening. There's no magic. And it gets worse."

I was afraid to ask. "HOW?"

"October twenty-third, the year twenty-seventy-seven."

"What about it?"

Stone was ashen now. "World War Three. The whole planet got nuked, Sleeper."

I was glad I was already sitting down. My head was spinning. "Hel?"

"I don't know if it's good or bad news at this point. There's some literature here about where we are. According to this, we're in something called a 'Vault', a huge fallout shelter designed to accommodate a thousand people. We seem to be in Vault 212, located in Louisiana."

"What year?"

Icer spoke up. "The year twenty-two eighty-seven...two hundred and ten years since the bombs dropped."

Heloquin turned to Icer. "What have you got?"

"More questions than answers. I managed to get into the system. Apparently there's a flaw in the operating system that enables a debug mode, but instead of typing in IDs and passwords, it throws a whole bunch of them up on the screen, and you have to pick one. It's like some kind of word game…"

"Truly fascinating, Icer, but skip to the end, what have you found out?" Heloquin said impatiently.

Icer cleared his throat, indicating a long answer. "For starters, this Vault was part of an experiment. The company that made this Vault and a whole slew of others, never intended the Vaults to be used to save the American Way Of Life. Out of...over seven hundred vaults...only a dozen or so was designed to actually house people safely. The others were set up to experiment on people. The Overseers were actually in on it. Check this out. This Vault was designed to test the occupants ability to survive adverse conditions when a vent that was supposed to be used to circulate air actually opened into a nearby lake. We're on the top level...all twelve levels below us are completely flooded. And before you ask, yes, the water's radioactive."

"Sleeper, no offense, but we might've been better off staying home," Stone said sourly.

"And if we hadn't taken the job in the first place, we'd be home safe in our beds right now. It was a chance to survive, Stone, and that's the first bullet point in our job descriptions. None of us knew where we were going, but nobody wanted to stay there." I hoped I sounded more convinced about that than I was. I was starting to think we should've stayed, too, but they were looking to me and I wasn't about to show them I was as scared as they were. "Icer, just how bad is it out there?"

"No clue. All I know is that things went straight to drek over two hundred years ago."

"Any chance of communicating with anyone out there?"

"...Sleeper, your commlink. Tune it to FM radio frequencies."

"FM?"

"Have your commlink scan between 88 and 108 megahertz."

"All right…"

"You've got a Commlink IV, so you've got more than one channel. Have another channel scan between 535 to 1705 kilohertz."

"That's...AM radio. Geez, Icer, I didn't think my commlink could go that low. Trying it now...nothing on FM…"

"Probably because we're inside this Vault. But AM frequencies aren't blocked so easily."

"...wait. I got one. AM 707...you gotta be kidding me…"

"What, what are you hearing?"

"I'll patch it through to our earbud comms."

There was a brief pause, then a resonating, husky female voice was heard, "...on the rise in the Acadiana Wasteland, and our hearts go out to all the settlements out there. Remember, chere, Super Mutants may be big and dumb, but don't underestimate them. Just find a place to hide. In other news, Mayor-For-Life Michael Boudreaux of Red City once again swears that he is not in partnership with any of the local raiders, nor is he paying them off by withholding aid from the smaller settlements out in the bayous. Trade between the Red City and Nawlins continues to be troublesome, as Nawlins' mayor, Dennis Lagarde, restricts access to the fishing ports in retaliation against Boudreaux's open accusations of corruption and economic deception. On a brighter note, Mardi Gras is coming in a month, and we're looking forward to a huge turnout…"

I switched it off. "Well, the good news is that there are actually survivors of the nuclear war."

"Ready for the bad news?" Icer said dryly. "First off, all the ammo we have? That's it. Unless we can find someplace that can make caseless ammunition for our guns, we're hosed. Second, the technology here is backwards and advanced at the same time. The architecture is mostly familiar, but look at this stuff. It' practically STONE AGE. This terminal is working on 128 kilobytes of RAM! The mainframe of this place? Our PDAs are more powerful. The laws of technology are different here, so different that my cyberdeck is quite possibly the most advanced computer on the PLANET...not that it's much help, since it's far too advanced to connect with anything here. I can try to kludge some kind of connection, see if I can come up with a counterparting program that'll enable me to talk down to the computers here." He stopped as he looked at the object I'd found with the skeleton. "Sleeper, let me see that."

I handed it to him. "I found it around the wrist of that skeleton over there. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say this guy was the Overseer."

"Well, whaddya know? Sleeper, this thing is the local equivalent of a PDA. This could be a big help, let me look it over and see what I can find."

"You do that. Everyone else, search every inch of this place, anything that might be useful, bring it back here. Weapons, medicine, food, ammunition, anything that could benefit us. And Icer? Figure out how we get out of here. I'm going to see what condition the front door is in."

"On it."

I nodded and went up the stairs indicated by the sign as the entrance. As I walked up, I could only guess at why this "Vault-Tec" tried to take what remained of the human population here and use them as guinea pigs and use the Vaults as petri dishes.

To be honest, I wish I could say I was surprised at how depraved a corporation like that could be, but that capacity died when I was eleven. Growing up in the Barrens of Seattle can do that to a kid.

Well, at least the way out wasn't exactly flimsy. The door itself was a metal cog, and based on the track used to roll away the door after it had been pulled back, the door was four feet thick, made of solid metal and probably weighed fifteen tons, at least. With the locks I could see, the thing could've probably withstood a direct hit from a nuclear explosion...which was clearly the appeal. There was a terminal that indicated the means of cycling the locks and opening the Vault, which meant there was probably one outside, too.

The place still had power, and lights, which showed that the Overseer was prepared for what happened when the place flooded...or so he thought. I found some weapons, two pistols and two dozen rounds. According to the information on the boxes of ammo and the guns, the bullets were 10mm rounds. Not exactly Predator IIs, but what was?

I moved downstairs to find out we had a small collection of a wide variety of items...including a pile of those giant roaches. "What did you bring those for?"

"Well, Sleeper...you're not going to like this, but there's a funny thing about these roaches," Heloquin said curiously.

"What?"

"There's a lot of meat on them…"

"Hel, that is not frakkin' funny."

"Well, you got a choice, Sleeper. Eat those and get something out of them, or don't eat them and risk your bioware shutting down while trying to find something more agreeable."

"...what else have we got?"

"Got some medicine, here. Five 'stimpaks', eight containers of purified water, four 'Rad-Xs', seven 'Rad-Aways' and two 'Mentats'. Also got some 10mm ammunition, but no guns for them."

"Found two up by the entrance."

"Good. Found some tools, and some assorted junk. Since I know what you can do with household chemicals, Sleeper, I found some turpentine, 'Wonderglue', cleaning supplies and some cigarettes."

"Stone, any idea what those medications are for?"

"Well...according to the information I found in one of the labs on this level, stimpaks can be used to jumpstart the body's ability to repair itself. Rad-X can increase the body's ability to resist the effects of radioactivity. Rad-Aways can actually force the body into metabolizing the radiation in the body, transforming it into natural body heat and neutralizing it. Mentats can be used to increase, however temporarily, cognitive function and creativity. However, the box warns that mentats can be habit-forming."

"Also known as 'addictive'." I turned to Icer. "Where are we at?"

"One of the nice things about primitive tech is that it's easy to sort out. I've managed to rewire a standard datajack cable to enable a connection between our tech and theirs. I've got my cyberdeck plugged in, and it's helping to speed things up with the terminal, but I'm seeing some REALLY odd code here. I've also been able to cross-reference a few things and hack into the back end of the operating systems. There is connection to a satellite dish, and I'm trying to see if there are any satellites in orbit with surveillance functions."

"That are still working?"

"Actually, barring meteorites and other celestial mishaps, there's a pretty high possibility they are, if the technology down here is any indicator. These things were built to last. I've also managed to pull up some interesting recordings and television broadcasts that suggests some cultural aspects. In some ways, the world was kind of a throwback to the 1940's and 1950's."

"Yeah, check out some of the magazines we found." Stone showed me a catalog filled with clothing and appliances, but the fashions were seriously outdated. "It's like the culture just hits 'pause' sometime around 1956."

"Why?"

"Who knows? Maybe having a culture built around nuclear power threw things off?"

"Check out the popular soft-drink." Stone flipped through a magazine and opened it to a page of a 1950's pinup girl in a suggestive space suit leaning against a bottle of….'Nuka-Cola'. Bewildered, I kept reading. "Drek...this place had a fraggin' theme park?"

"Got it!" Icer crowed. "We're in. I found a network of satellites, downloading their data to my 's not ideal, but we should be able to pull up maps, maybe communication."

"Good. Come on, let's get some rest. We've been at this for hours and, to be honest, you guys don't look good. I probably look like drek, too. Sleep well. And that means you too, Icer."

"Fine...I'll have my SAKs get to work." Icer sounded disappointed, but I knew he'd stay up for days, given the chance, and I wasn't kidding when I told him he didn't look good. Fortunately, the place wasn't cold and we found beds to lay down on. We've slept in worse places.

I woke up alone.

When I pulled myself up, I'd realized that I'd slept for damn near sixteen hours. "Fraggin' Hades, guys, why didn't you wake me…?" I stopped as I realized that Icer was missing, but Stone and Heloquin were still in their beds.

I got up and went over to shake Stone awake, but stopped when I touched her. She was cold. "Stone?" I asked, turning her on her back, then checked her pulse. She was dead. Died in her sleep. I practically leaped over to check on Heloquin. He was gone, too. And from the lack of rigor, they'd been gone for hours.

No, this can't be happening...they were ALIVE, dammit! I backed away from them, then I remembered.

Icer.

I ran like hell back to the Overseer's office and found him there, sprawled in his seat, still plugged into his cyberdeck. As I walked over to check on him, my presence must've triggered the cyberdeck, which powered up and Icer's voice came out of it. "Sleeper, if you're hearing this, then you're still alive. I don't know what happened to us. Maybe there was something that didn't like metahumans, or magic or something else. Doesn't matter by now. We're dead, and you're still alive. First off, don't ever blame yourself for what happened. You didn't see this coming. None of us did. But we didn't want you to be alone. I'm going to be trying something. I'm running a compiler program to try and see if the code from our world and the code from this world is compatible. If it is, then I'm leaving you the deck and the programs, in the hopes that they'll evolve using the code here. If they do, you'll be able to hack any terminal on this planet, and the SAKs will help you with information and help keep you from getting lonely...or going insane. I don't know how you're going to get by, but we did the best we could. All our gear's in the footlocker next to your bed. I'm sorry we didn't wake you, but we suck at goodbyes."

I didn't realize I'd been sitting on the floor for a few minutes. Icer's voice went on. "The deck's equipped with a satlink to the network of satellites in orbit that I commandeered. Over the next few days, you'll be getting aerial maps updated in your system. I've also upgraded that wrist-device you found, linked it to the cyberdeck. It's called a 'Pip-Boy'. You'll be able to use it to access and hack the systems in this world." Icer started coughing on the recording. "Sorry about that….and sorry for leaving you. Look, do me a favor. You've always wanted to try and make the world around you a better place. Don't stop doing that. Find people and help them."

There was silence for a very long time, then Icer said, "Drek, I'm tired."

And that was all.

I sat there for almost a full day before I realized that I had to get moving. I had to eat and get myself together. I saved the nutrient packs for later, in case of a real emergency...as if eating roach meat wasn't enough of one.

The toxin sensor in my tongue confirmed that it wasn't poisonous. It was like eating lobster, only I was eating just the tail...and God help me, the taste was similar. Somewhere between lobster and catfish. I looked at the pile of huge bugs and couldn't believe I was actually looking FORWARD to the taste. I ate every single one of them, pan frying them one after another. My brain was telling me to throw up, but my calorie-starved stomach was telling me to shovel it down. And believe me, my stomach was louder.

I put the upgraded Pip-Boy on my left wrist and waited for it to boot up, synchronize itself with the cyberdeck. A lot of the information on it was useless, since my cyberware was throwing a lot of its systems off, but as it calibrated itself to me, I became more aware of where I was. The device also was nice enough to tell me how radioactive I was, thanks to the huge meal of Radioactive Roaches I had.

I loaded up. The two 10mm were on my waist, the rest of the weapons and ordnance loaded on my back, most in a state of disassembly. The pack was big, but I was even bigger, and I wasn't weighed down. Not unless you count the three dead friends I'd known for years.

And I was going to carry that weight.

When the door opened, I expected to be blinded immediately, but the door opened to a set of stairs leading towards a fenced-in area. A screeching from above told me there was a lift coming down for me. As it arrived and the fence raised, I looked back at the tomb where my friends rested. I made sure the door was back in place, then raised a gloved fist and brought it down on the control panel, sealing their tomb forever as it collapsed under the blow, plastic and sparks flying.

I got onto the lift, making sure I never looked back.

It was just after dawn when I got to the top, a little early for my shades just yet. The platform I was now on was surrounded by discarded metal crates, what looked like stripped cars and a couple of small metal boxes that served as guard stations. The foliage around me was largely overgrown, and I had a feeling there weren't too many military targets down in this state...when it was a state. of the Union instead of a state of disrepair. I was at the top of a hill, and when I looked down, I saw a path, of sorts, leading to the ruins of a town. The commlink started picking up another signal, one with classical music playing on it. The AM station, calling itself "Red Stick Rock", was playing something from the Big Band era titled, "Crawl Out Through The Fallout".

Talk about your nuclear culture…!

As I walked down the path, the link to the cyberdeck activated, showing me where I was. The Vault had been built within a town called, "Lafayette", and the place had certainly seen better days. The architecture had a huge "Leave It To Beaver" vibe to it...

Yes. I watched Leave It To Beaver. Don't judge me.

Most of the city had clearly been reclaimed by the unrelenting forces of nature. I checked my map to see if I could find any trace of a civilization, The only thing that looked like it was still standing was a large sports arena called, "the Cajundone', because OF COURSE it was. There were some connected buildings to it and enough urban sprawl keeping it from getting reclaimed, so it seemed like the perfect place to find any survivors.

I put my wraparound shades on. Same goal...new shadows.

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TO BE CONTINUED...