They saw it coming. They knew the writing was on the wall. They put a rush order on the construction on the remaining vaults with men and women who couldn't even afford to secure a spot within these vaults working around the clock. You couldn't tell your Mr. Handy to turn on the television without seeing Vault-Tec Propaganda. It hadn't even been a year since I was finally able to hang up my power armor for good. I had been enjoying moderate-sized city life. The most sensitive situations I was getting into were discussions about the local side of the war's effects including the discussions of outrage associated with Vault-Tec building within Mammoth Cave. I had to laugh to myself about how little people truly knew about our government, military, and their preparations. Vault-Tec was essentially a scam. Chances were high that these beds within these vaults would never be needed. People were investing their entire lives' savings their most valuable possessions and their family's futures into these what-ifs. I thought it was a lot of hubbub over nothing. In fact a Mr. Handy was actually cheaper than a tank of fuel these days mainly because people were selling them used to gather money for their vault slot. The one I got I call Mr. Stevious, (as in Mischievous) I modified with some surplus parts from work so that Kelly and the dog will be defended while I'm working my long work hours. Either way, I bought him gently used for a song from a desperate neighbor.
After the hells that I had seen in my time in Anchorage and my short stint in Shanghai before that, the widespread eradication of humans didn't seem like such an atrocity. Not that I thought us all a vile plague on the earth, but once you've seen what we are capable of, you grow numb to the thought. I had my share of red-yellow blood on my hands. I had heard men's voices cry out to their God in vengeance, but that's not when you worry about the world. You start to worry when you hear them thank you for delivering them from the Hell they had wrought. My service had made me a prime candidate to supervise the special force's modification of sentry bots and Mr. Gutsies at our small secret facility on the outskirts of town. My wife Kelly and I had been trying to start our family since before I came home. The doc at the VA wanted to look into some genetic therapy for my friend and the boys downstairs. The problem was some nonsense about over exposure to radiation from fusion cores. I told Kelly we weren't going to do that. Too great a length to put an unstable amount of radiated seed in her womb could result in some Zeta baby clawing its way out of her stomach before term. She cried. I don't think it was time to joke, but how would I know? Spending the past 10 years fighting a stalemate war can tend to make a man kind of callous. The way she acted though you'd have thought I was Grognac the Barbarian himself. That happened around the end of September.
From that point on, she wasn't quite the same. She cried every day. She didn't speak to me much. I guess that's why I'm not so tore up about it all now. I had lost her almost a month before that day. I could say she didn't want to come because she didn't want to live but I know deep down, she didn't want to live any longer with who I had become. I was home that day from work for the first actual day off since that doctor's appointment. It Figures. My job had its own shelter contingency plan set up by the government to keep the mod facility running in the event of the worst. Kelly and I both had secured slots, but the question was often asked by other employees which was very valid.
"How are we supposed to go home and get our wives and make it back here by the time the bombs fall?"
Leadership tip-toed around the subject very deftly, but it didn't smooth things over enough for the majority of the employees to start making their families come to work with them. When they figured out this wasn't going to be sustainable, it slowly started to taper off until many of them decided to start saving for Vault-Tec slots. At the wage they were being paid, there's a very low likelihood that they made it. At Any Rate, I was home when the sirens started. I listened to the news and radio to find out what my time frame was and I determined that I was not going to make it back to work.
I was about to give up when I saw the neighbor girls across the street locked out of their house. Their school was within walking distance from the neighborhood. The sweet little girls were desperate to get into their house, throwing their school books at the window hoping to gain entry. As we approached, The youngest one Callie said, "Our passes are in there." I quickly calculated that Kelly needed this to snap out of it so I forcefully grabbed her by the hand and pulled her with me. I yelled to Stevious to defend us to the University vault. Kelly fought me all the way across the street. I held her head as I looked into her eyes. The fire in mine must have told her that this was not the time to crumble, because immediately she was calm and collected and the Kelly I had fallen in love with was back for that slight second. I said, "We need to take these girls to their vault." Kelly nodded as I pulled a bobby pin from her hair, she immediately walked to comfort the girls.
Pandemonium was ensuing around us. People were already trampling each other and attempting to rob each other for vault passes. I calmly but quickly picked the lock on the door. Just as I was opening the door a piercing scream came from down the street. "Don't let them turn around!" I yelled to Kelly as I watched the events unfold at VATS speed. Their mother, Olivia, was just within sight of her home where her passes were kept when a father and his two young boys gunned her down.
"Stevious! Stall them!" I ordered. I opened the rear compartment of his frame where I had hidden my trusty 10mm and its holster.
"Kelly, Take them inside and find those passes!" I ordered. She followed the girls. They knew that the passes were in their parents' room but not exactly where. I could hear them quickly ransacking the bedroom in distant peripheral earshot, but only by blocking out the pings of the bullets hitting Stevious and the stair rail I was taking cover behind. Stevious was equipped with a combat shotgun along with his normal flame thrower and saw blade tools. As his onslaught of fire forced the family to stop progressing, I lined up the reflex sight on my 10mm. As the father and his boys peeked out to deliver simultaneous shots at us, I delivered 3 quickly aimed shots, the first nailing the father in the lower neck, the youngest boy in the shoulder he was butting his rifle against and the older boy in the lower torso. I stayed within a defensive posture as I commanded Stevious to finish them. Not that I wouldn't have been capable, but why invite the nightmares when you have another option?
Stevious sprayed the group with his flame thrower as I walked to the girl's mother's lifeless body. She was reaching for the house when she took her last breathes. I slid her wedding ring from her finger and placed it in her handbag. I placed that in my back pocket as I ran back to the house. The girls and Kelly were already heading down the stairs. Kelly's face was ghost-white as the girls began to walk toward the back door with our dog in tote. Kelly calmly with a look of defeat handed me the passes. There were three. The girls' father Allen did not secure a spot for his wife. I immediately started calculating a possible back story for the reasoning behind this. In the split seconds of a tangent my mind was going down I had completely ignored that this had removed any hope from Kelly's mind of getting into the Vault. I honestly hadn't thought that far ahead from compartmentalizing the tasks at hand but I guess that Kelly had foreseen us entering the vault as Mr. and Mrs. Allen Story.
I looked at Kelly with the fury of desperation and growled, "We have to try!"
"No Norman," She whimpered with tears welling in her eyes. "You do."
She reached into her dress pocket and pulled three syringes of Med-X. Before I could reach her to wrestle them away she stabbed them into her neck and released all of the chem into her blood. I cradled her as she fell. She smiled as she kissed me softly and whispered "go." I roared as I slung her dead weight over my shoulder and commanded the girls to run.
Stevious flew in a zig-zag pattern in front of us prepared to do what needed to be done if we were approached or hindered. I covered the rear as well as I could with my 10mm and Kelly slung over my shoulder. Just as we approached the stadium entrance which hid the entrance to the University vault we were bottlenecked into a line of desperate people.
Speakers repeated a broadcast overhead tracking the bombs as they approached the United States. "Is there more I can assist you with, Mr. Norman?" asked Stevious.
"Fly up ahead; I need you to tell the guys in the power armor that you've got Professor Allen Story and Family here."
With that I didn't see Stevious again.
The crowd became more and more violent as the news voice announced contact in Europe and missiles spotted over California working their way east. The crowd was occupying less and less space as they began to trample and crush people to get further in toward the vault entrance. I was struggling to maintain a perimeter of safe space for the girls to occupy as we inched toward the entrance.
"Estimated Contact in Ten Minutes" Said the voice on the intercom as the familiar thump of power armor came from the bottlenecked entrance.
The voice coming from the power armor, though electronically intimidating was that of a young man. I knew the kid was green as army Instamash after 8 months in Anchorage. He moved sloppily in his power armor but still carving a path through the crowd flailing his bulky arms. The amount of strength he was putting into the motions showed me that he was still fighting the armor instead of letting it do the work for him. This resulted in everyone hit by his flailing arms sustaining real injuries. As if this situation needed more chaos added to it. As he got closer I could make out what he was actually saying.
"Tilda and Callie Story… Tilda and Callie Story." Bellowed the Mask of the power armor. Stevious had made it! Then my thought process finally realized that they were only asking for the girls. I was screwed. Allen was already inside and they knew I was an imposter. Plan b was quickly forming in my head. I kneeled down to the girls who hadn't stopped crying to share with them the plan.
"I have to get this guy out of his armor so I can take you ladies inside to your dad, okay? So what I need you to do is tell him who you are and start trying to run away. He doesn't know how to work that armor and he's liable to hurt you if he tries to pick you up. I'm going to relieve him of that duty." I said with my signature fire of sincerity in my eyes.
I could see that Tilda was suspicious of this statement so I looked into her eyes sincerely.
"My mission here is to get you two in that vault safely. I am aware that my chance to get in has come and gone. That man is hurting people and I do not trust him to be able to get you there safely!" I pleaded. "If I meant you harm, we would not have made it this far. I need you to trust me."
Tilda's resolve started to bolster as she watched the power armor hulk closer bashing the face of a nearby elderly woman splattering her blood on the people nearby. Tilda made a determined and enraged expression showing me that her trust had once again aligned itself with me as she took her sister by the hand and announced, "We are Tilda and Callie Story!"
With a dramatic pause while checking his internal display for their pictures, the guard started moving forward with more purpose. As I had told them to do, they evaded him as he got close enough to pick them up without a word.
"Hey! Come back! I'm trying to help!" He said as he re-arose from his crouching position.
I carefully and quietly set Kelly down on the asphalt leaning against the barrier as I sneakily removed the fusion core from the suit of power armor. The armor stopped dead as I spun the wheel causing it to open. Inside, was a skinny Poindexter of a man stood fighting with the now inactive power armor. I grabbed a fistful of his hair and flung him backwards out of the armor. There, a mob of angry people swarmed him. I re-engaged the fusion cell and entered the suit myself. The suit was not well maintained, which may have explained some of the rookie's ineptitude with the suit but not his cruelty of repeated action. I placed my fist on the ground and asked the girls to hold onto the cleats on the pauldrons as they sat with their legs on either side. They did as I asked while I smoothly guided the power armor back upward. I looked around to pick up Kelly again but I didn't find her. I looked around in a panic. She was nowhere to be seen.
"Did you see what happened to Kelly?" I asked Tilda and Callie.
"She got picked up." Said Callie Timidly, "In the crowd."
"Where is she?!" I announced into the crowd.
The husband of the old woman who was bashed aside brought her forward. I had been holding her upside down over my shoulder and hadn't noticed her vomiting. I don't know if it was while I was carrying her or after I had set her down, but her face was blue from asphyxiation. He shook his head with sadness on his face.
"Sh… she didn't make it. I venture to say you've been carrying her around dead for the last 5 minutes, son" He said.
I was so angry at her. I swallowed hot murderous rage as I refocused as my mind was programmed to do. I was crying, hot with rage and defeated inside at my body continued to act with purpose. This was the hell that I was used to. I was being driven by the task but doing my best not to feel the worst pain imaginable. I was chewing back vomit myself while my body stayed active. If I were not encased in the powered armor, my knees would have buckled and all hope would have been lost. When the fog of hatred depression and anger lifted, I positioned the girls securely on the power armor.
I yelled to the crowd, "Everybody get behind me!"
I charged.
The crowd, at this point, was smart enough to make a path for me to get through as I bashed into the wall that was bottlenecking the group. With this new access point, the vault's security was breeched. With my additional strength and speed, I put a decent distance between the choke point and the vault doors. In the calamity, the security force had assumed that I was the same man that was sent out to retrieve the girls so they did not meet my presence with aggression. A few more had been sent out and already returned.
"Three minutes to estimated Impact." said the NORAD voice.
With this announcement the crowd began to rush into the security force eventually overwhelming the power armor clad group. There was a contingency plan for this. They had thought of everything.
As I continued to carry the girls into the vault door, I was waved in to hurry as the vault door began to close. The bastards called the security guards expendable the whole time. Laser Turrets dropped from the doorway and came up from the ground as the crowd poured in. There was hardly time to sigh before they were decimated by the barrage of firepower. I calmly put my fists on the ground and allowed the girls to climb down the power armor. When they were safely on the ground I hotly exited the armor and charged at the woman at the control to the blast door. I pulled her up by the scruff of her jump suit spitting in her face as I growled through my teeth.
"You Killed all those people! Even your own!"
The woman shook and lost her breathe in extreme crippling Terror as the fog of red vision began to fade. I had not noticed the security personnel in riot gear who were already whipping me with their batons. I fell to my knees as the impact rendered my muscles useless. I heard the familiar click of a 10mm leaving its holster and cocking.
I thought to myself "Mission accomplished soldier, Now die in good company."
Just as my eyes looked toward the nearest light as I resolved to my fate, a voice came over the intercom.
"Stop!.. The Savagery stops at those doors. Restrain him and bring him to the brig. We have use for him." As I rose to fight, the very lady I was choking, swung her stun baton at my head as the room went dark on me. Just as I lost consciousness I heard "Citizens of Vault 52 contact immanent, Now brace for impact!" as the ground furiously shook under me. My mind could sense these things but the rest of my body could not move.