Chapter 1 "Vault 23"
The day started out, like it always did, with her Pip-Boy's alarm going off at six on the dot. She groaned as she got out of bed; she was defiantly not a morning person but Jim wanted her to start early today. She had to fight hard just to get to sleep in 'til six because Jim had originally wanted her there two hours ago. Half-dressed, she fumbled around in a cabin for a quick breakfast with no luck. Letting out a long sigh, she found a clean yellow and black engineer's jump suit and her boots. The jumpsuit never fit right so she had torn the sleeves off and left the top hanging from the belt. Finding a clean top proved a bit harder, though; she ended up with a tank top that had, at one time, been white. The top revealed a couple small scars and a few more freshly healing cuts and scrapes on her arms. On her way out, she did a double-take when she caught her reflection in the mirror; her hair looked like a rats nest. Since she didn't have anyone to impress, she rarely did anything with her shoulder-length hair. In typical vault lighting, her light red hair looked almost pink. As she was in a hurry, she pulled it into lopsided pigtails. She hesitated at her reflection as she became aware of the light freckles under her eyes and how the bone structure was very feminine. To her it looked below average. When she realized what she was doing, she shook her head and stormed out the door. She headed down the hall to see if John had any of his famous doughnuts ready. As soon as the door opened, she could smell John's baking. In her opinion, he was best cook in the vault.
"Mornin' Kay!" John's cheerful voice greeted her as she walked in.
He was maybe in his late twenties and was a rather handsome fellow. Maria's one lucky girl, she thought.
"Hmm… yea mornin'," she grumbled, but it probably came out more like "hmm-ye-mmm."
"Cheerful as always," he said with a smile from ear to ear as he slid a plate with a doughnut and a bottle of Nuka-Cola up to her.
He could read her pretty well, but it was easy since she only ordered two things in the morning: sugar and more sugar. Today was one of those "more sugar" days: for all he knew, she would curl up and take a nap on the dinner stool any minute. Kay, however, hated his upbeat attitude. Seriously, how could he get up early and be that happy? Who was she kidding…he was a great guy. It's the sleep deprivation talking, she thought. John knew her like a sister, and he could tell she was in one of those "back off" modes, so he went back to preparing food.
She wolfed her pastries down, hoping for a sugar rush as she downed half the pop all at once before she left the diner. She knew Jim wouldn't be happy she was running late; as far as she was concerned, he could take a dip in the purifier. She was still mad about the reactor patch he made her do a few months back. The radiation poisoning had almost killed her before she was done. It was so bad that she had even lost consciousness before she could get all the way out, forcing them to fish her out with some old broom handles and wire. It took the doc a week to flush the radiation out of her system and get her conscious again. When the doc finished, he had told her that her body appeared to have changed on a cellular level, but he wasn't sure. She hoped that didn't mean her flesh would start to rot away and turn her into a ghoul. That whole deal still gave her nightmares both from the radiation and a little humiliation. Maria, her guardian angel, so to speak, had showed up at a convenient time to prevent a social disaster. Kay had been forced to cannibalize a few fusion batteries for materials to patch the reactor and created several large holes in her clothes. After that, she made a mental note to keep a backup wardrobe in the maintenance room lockers.
"Kaycee." Right on cue, Jim's harsh voice snapped at her, almost making her drop the bottle in her hand. "Didn't I say be here at six?" He asked, "I saw you first walk into John's at six," he continued, not letting Kay get a word in otherwise.
She might talk tough, but some people like Jim had this thing, like a command presence that would whip anyone into shape. Jim was her boss and head of vault engineering, which is just a fancy way of saying maintenance.
"Come on already, you're the only one that can fit back in there, hurry up!" Jim insisted.
Jim's old, wrinkly face looked at her with distaste, almost as if she were some scum that needed scraping from a boot. What little hair Jim had left was almost white and he stood hunched over on a cane most of the time. When he walked, he had an odd gait due to a limp; probably, she guessed, from an old injury.
"I did all the hard work while you were asleep and got the equipment here."
That made Kay snort as she thought, Sure you did, you probably had Kendra and Bill do that last night.
"I heard that, cupcake. Don't make me whack you with my cane!" Jim barked.
She rolled her eyes; Jim had been the coach for the vault baseball team she was on until a few years ago. It used to be a baseball bat that he threatened everyone with, but he never actually hit anyone. He just liked saying that he would knock some sense into you. Jim also called everyone on the team "cupcake," though he never stopped calling you that no matter how old you were.
"Alright, I'll hand you the tools as soon as you get back there." Jim said as he picked up her welding helmet.
They were in a big room, or at least it would have been a big room if it didn't have two thirty thousand gallon tanks and a raised fifteen thousand gallon treatment pond between them. They had to do repairs on the water purification system before it failed completely and flooded the vault. The floor had already taken on three inches of water from the leak in tank number two. It was times like this that made her wish she was some large mutant ape or something because she didn't like small spaces, or spiders for that matter. Reluctantly, she squeezed between a bulkhead and the tank, making her way back into the crawlway to find her mark from yesterday. She was grateful it was only a few feet in; she almost got stuck when she was in here looking for the leak. Jim handed her what she needed and held a light for her. He looked ridiculous in his tinted goggles, but she suppressed the laugh that threatened to creep up her throat. Her pig tails poked out slightly from behind her welding mask, sparks flying around her. They used to stick out farther, but she had accidentally started one of them on fire last week and they had to trim her hair about six inches to straighten the mess out. Kaycee was one of the few built on a small frame, making her just under four-and-a-half feet tall. She was also gifted with her hands and could literally make junk into a wonder of engineering. Unfortunately, with those two traits, she ended up doing the dirty work in places no man would – or could, for that matter – go.
When she finished welding, she traded the equipment she had for the light and some blue dye to test it and make sure it was sealed.
She painted the weld with the dye and said, "Okay Jim, try pressurizing the tank and see if I got it this time."
Jim hobbled to the controls and sat down, saying, "Here goes nothing," then counted off the pressure reading as it rose.
When it hit fifteen, he almost had a heart attack as he heard a sharp PING, followed by a shriek.
"TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!" Kay called out frantically.
He quickly hit the release button, but when he turned around he broke out laughing hysterically. Kay came out from the confined space, her face and some of her hair splattered in blue. Most of her face had been turned blue; the rings from her safety glasses were the only exception. Shaking her head at Jim, she left for the rest room. This was turning out to be one of those days.
It turned out the blue dye wouldn't wash off, so she went back to work on the purifier both looking and feeling blue. They now had a new problem, her weld was good but a pipe had burst. She made another mental note: always close the bottle of dye after use. It took the rest of the morning to finish the repairs and get the system back to full operation.
Checking the time, she thought she better let Crystal know that she would be a bit late on starting the retrofits in Lab three. Her stomach would not let her keep working without stopping for lunch. She also liked Crystal and didn't want her to get upset. When she got to her office, Crystal looked up from the computer and grinned. She was wearing her blue jumpsuit and white lab coat, the standard outfit for vault scientist.
"What in the world happened to you? Get in a fight with a mutant blueberry or something?"
Kay rolled her eyes, "Not funny, it won't wash off."
Just then, Raphael came in from the lab and almost dropped his coffee cup when he saw her.
"You weren't playing in the reactor again, were you?" he asked, obviously struggling to keep a straight face.
"Apparently Smurfs are real and not just in those old children's books," Crystal suggested.
With that, Raph lost it and started laughing and Crystal joined him a second later. Kay mock-pounded her head against the door and waited for them to finish. They were great to hang out with, but they were too quick-witted for her to have any comeback of her own to their jokes. She thought they were both about twenty-six and they spent most of their time in Lab three. They were only two of a couple dozen Botanists in Vault twenty three. This particular vault had been built with special provisions to perform long-term research on plants in various conditions. The goal was to learn as much as they could before the day they opened the vault. Kay didn't know all the details, but it was some sort of Garden of Eden project. There was something developed before the war they called a G.E.C.K., but it was only half related to the work they did here. Kay assumed it was experimental technology and was probably not fully tested, but this was only her guess.
"Oh, you're so cute when you're angry." Crystal said, as if she were speaking to an infant.
Crystal got up and her gaze scanned the room for some supplies. The office wasn't very big; it was placed so that two labs would use the same office, so they packed a lot of equipment in small area. There was a row of filing cabinets on the left wall when you walked in, on the far right wall was two desks with computers. In the middle of the room were three evenly spaced tables, each had a computer and several other strange instruments. On the back wall, there was this huge observation window and a door in either corner for accessing the labs.
"Here sweetie, let me try this once." Crystal picked up some jar of stuff and a towel.
Kay backed up suddenly when she caught a whiff from the open jar, doubting her friend's intentions. They had been known to play pranks on each other after all.
"NO, you better not be…"
Crystal cut her off, "I know it smells bad but I've removed a few…umm, stains with this."
Kay looked over at Raph with pleading eyes and all he did was shrug, his expression told her nothing. She backed into the filing cabinets and unknowingly found herself cornered like a rat in a trap. She slumped her shoulders in resignation; after all, things couldn't get much worse. She was wrong, though, because Crystal tried rubbing at one of her blue cheeks then started to laugh when she pulled away.
"That wasn't supposed to…" Crystal stopped and looked at the jar in her hand.
"W-what happened?" Kay was starting to tear up, the color draining from her face.
Raph squinted across the room, seaming to remember something suddenly, "That wasn't the…oh, dear."
Raph's face went through several different expressions before he cracked up. The spot where Crystal had tried to remove the dye was a bright shade of orange.
"I-I," Raph controlled his laughing, "I swapped that weeks ago, I had been waiting for you to try taking a stain out of your lab coat. I'm sorry Kay but it looks good on you."
"W-what d-does it look like?" Kay stuttered.
Crystal thought for a moment, "Hold still", then she quickly dabbed a similar sized spot on her other cheek.
Kay's eyes got so big she thought they would pop out, "You had to…"
"Make it even" Crystal finished.
She winked at Kay and handed the jar and towel to her; she quickly turned and headed toward Raph.
Crystal grabbed his arm and gave it a quick twist, "Ouch hey what are you…? Oh no, you wouldn't!" Looking at Kay, he asked," You know I didn't mean it right, Kay?"
Kay only grinned back at him, now understanding Crystal's idea. In a moment, she had covered his face with bright orange flowers and hearts. They were still horsing around when Maria walked in with some samples. She raised an eyebrow and shook her head; it wasn't the worst thing she walked in on, but it was one of the funniest.
"Do I even want to ask?" They all turned, finally noticing Maria.
"I was ambushed by an Amazon and a purple people eater," Raph said.
Crystal looked down; she was admittedly of a bigger build than most of the other women in the vault. She was well endowed in the front but her girls were well scaled to her larger-than-average body. At almost six feet tall, she couldn't help but make some men like Raph feel like she was an Amazonian. Raph was only about five feet tall.
"Hey!" She said and lightly punched his shoulder.
"Ouch! What I do?" His face mocked a painful expression as he rubbed his arm.
"Whatever it was, you deserved it, Raph." Maria said then turned to look at Kay.
"Don't tell me you ate one of John's blueberry long bombs, I told him they were irradiated."
Kay's face faded back to a shocked expression, "He…that…irradiated?" She stammered.
"Oh don't look so blue," Maria said with a chuckle.
The peanut gallery started laughing again in the background. Taking a cue from Maria, Raph tapped Crystal on the shoulder and said, "Were going to get something to eat so if you interested. We'll be at John's."
Maria nodded as they left her in the office with Kay.
"You're rather sensitive today," Maria said, "things must not be going your way."
Kay shook her head, "Things only seem to get worse wherever I go."
"Well your first mistake was talking to them two jokers." She rubbed her thumb on Kay's cheek, "Do I even want to know?"
"No…you don't" Kay replied dryly.
Kay's stomach growled loudly, Maria chuckled as she stood up and gestured to the door, "Walk and talk," she offered.
They had to go up two levels to get to John's, which gave Kay plenty of time to share the events of the morning with Maria. One level up, Kay noticed something out of the corner of her eye as they rounded a corner in the maze of hallways. She was certain of what she saw, which is why she didn't hesitate and hoped it didn't notice her.
"My my my…I didn't know you would start wearing makeup for me."
Kay closed her eyes and stopped, it just had to be paying attention, didn't it? Maria whirled around to see who was there and her smile faltered.
"Jake," Maria said, sounding a bit annoyed, "we're a little busy so…" Jake cut her off with a hand gesture before she could finish.
Jake was the overseer's son and he was…well, he was one of those womanizing pigs. Fortunately, in the vault they rarely ever had more than one or two of his kind in a population of five to six hundred dwellers. However, things were different for him because few people ever wanted to confront the overseer about his behavior. Some had fallen for his false charms, but others like Kay had rejected him. Kay's story was different – indeed, she was probably the only one that had humiliated him after several repeat attempts. What had caused her to freeze in the hall was one memory in particular; a memory that was only a couple of weeks old.
That week, Jake had become a bit more violent in his attempts to get in her jumpsuit. When she told him off and turned to leave, he grabbed her and slammed her into the wall. Thankfully, the incident occurred just down the hall from the security office and the sound of her impact into the wall prompted a nice young man by the name of Rick to come take a look. Kay never told anyone what had actually happened, but she figured Rick had his suspicions. Even when Rick talked to her after the incident, she still didn't explain. Nevertheless, he gave her some advice and left her space to figure things out.
"Nonsense," Jake said, "My favorite girl always has time for me."
Maria took a worried step back, but Kay didn't move. She frowned at her in confusion; Kay was staring at a spot on the floor in front of her, and Maria almost thought she saw a fire in her eyes.
Jake started to slowly walk closer, grinning like a hyena, "Isn't that right, Kay?" His mouth twisted into a disturbing smile as he continued, "You know, I think blue looks good on you."
Kay was certain he meant black and blue; she also hoped that red would show up like it did the last time. She didn't think she would be that lucky this time, though. More than anything, she wanted to run, but for some reason her legs didn't want to work. Vault security's jumpsuit was black and red, and for that reason most people just called them "the reds." Looking down both ends of the hallway, she looked to see if there were any Reds around, but there weren't.
"Just leave her alone, Jake. How many times does she need to say 'no' before you go away?" Maria growled.
Maria knew where this was going, and she wanted to run for help but she was afraid to leave since Kay seemed very shaken and unresponsive. Jake was now directly behind Kay and was leaning his head down as one might do to woo his love.
Maria's eyes widened, "Come on Kay, let's go. We don't need to stick around where we don't belong."
"You don't have to go anywhere," he said calmly. "Maybe both of you would like to join me for lunch in my cabin?"
Jake titled his head to look at Maria, eyeing her up like someone would eye a steak at the grocery store: hungrily. He then reached around Kay, groping at her chest. Maria looked on in horror as her friend was about to become victim to this…this creature. At the moment he touched her, something must have snapped inside Kay. That fire she saw before in Kay's eyes returned, blazing suddenly with a renewed intensity as she reached up and grabbed Jakes wrist. He grinned like he had won a small victory, then winced in pain. Kay didn't spend years in maintenance without building muscles from the heavy work. Her hand clamped down like a vise grip and her knuckles turned white.
Kay cut through the brief silence, "I told you to leave me alone Jake. Let go!"
She surprised herself when it came out far more calmly than she actually felt; her heart was racing at a hundred miles an hour. Jake was obviously outraged and brought his other arm around, putting her into reverse a bear hug. This made her let go of his wrist and raise her arms to pull out of his grip. As she slid down he tightened and put her in a headlock as Maria screamed in panic. They struggled for a moment before Kay remembered some advice she had gotten from Rick. She balled her fist and slammed it into the side of his leg as hard as she could. His knee suddenly stopped working and collapsed in on itself bringing him down to her level. This allowed her to snake an arm up and place a hand under his chin, where she pushed as hard has she could. His head tipped backward and his body moved with it, giving her an open shot. She wailed her free arm around with as much force as she could muster, doing the best imitation she could of Rick's instructions. She could hear the air rush out as she knocked the wind out of Jake and he went down clutching his gut. Not wanting to take any chances, she quickly moved around and shoved a heel into his goods, sending him rolling around in a fetal position on the ground.
Maria hurried over to her side, "W-where did you learn that?"
"Long…story," Kay huffed, exhausted from the effort.
Unbeknownst to them, Jake managed to roll onto his knees while they were distracted, even though he must have hurt like hell. He managed to lunge, grabbing at Kay's shirt. That shirt, however, was old and weak, so when he pulled on it she only stumbled as the shirt ripped from an existing tear and came off. Before Kay even knew what was happening, a boot collided with a wet thud against Jake's nose. That blow knocked him out completely: Maria had taken her shot that time.
"Don't ever ask me to join you for lunch," Maria spat at Jake's unconscious body. Stunned, Kay almost forgot she was standing there with only her small clothes from the waist up and crossed her hands over her chest. They finally heard footsteps coming down the hall. It turned out to be two reds; Rick and another guy from security. They approached the two women and obviously couldn't believe what they saw; their chins were on their chests as they stared down at the lump of a guy on the floor. Jake wasn't very well liked, but as far as anyone really knew, he hadn't fallen to anyone's blows.
"Get the doc," Rick said to the other man.
He stared at Kay's face then suddenly he diverted his eyes as he noticed the lack of clothing.
"Oh shoot, sorry," he blushed and quickly pulled his armor vest off.
Still looking away, he handed it in Kay's general direction and Maria took it and covered Kay with it. Now, he looked at the man on the floor and, thumbing his chin, admired her handiwork. Taking a risk, he glanced up at the two women; Kay was covered as well as she could be. Nodding at Jake, he grunted, and Kay worked with enough guys to know what that meant. Men had this other language which used a few variations of the same grunt. This one in particular basically translated into "nice work" and she nodded with a grunt of her own meaning "thanks."
"The nose was all Maria, though, so I can't take full credit." Kay felt the need to clarify that particular detail.
"Well, can you get her out of here before too many people show up?" Rick asked Maria.
"I think I can do that," Maria answered.
"I'll find you later for questions to make it official, okay?" Rick checked Jake's pulse and seemed disappointed that he was alive.
"I'll probably be working in lab three when you come looking for me."
He both stared at Kay in disbelief and opened his mouth to protest at the same time.
"No! I need to do something or I won't stop thinking about this. I just need a new shirt and some food" Kay insisted before he could argue.
Rick looked at Maria, hoping for support, but she only shrugged. She knew how stubborn Kay could be. With a just a moment's eye contact, Rick and Maria had a small conversation, and she silently agreed to stay close to Kay for support. The two then headed down the hall as other people who had heard the scream started to show up.