Waking up to alarms and the sounds of distant gunshots was soon to be my least favorite way of waking up. I looked around my tiny room. Lights were blaring, people were yelling in the halls. I started listing every swear word I could come up with, dearest daddy James must have gotten caught working on the project. I looked underneath my bed, spotting and retrieving an obsidian case.

"Dad and his overpowered security measures..." I muttered aloud.

Like I had been drilled to do multiple times I entered a twelve digit code into a side panel. The case opened with a hydraulic hiss, revealing its contents.

One military grade sniper rifle, broken into its base parts, and six clips of .308 armor piercing ammo.

One winterized 10mm pistol, a remnant of the Alaskan war. Only two clips went with it, I chuckled, only twenty four shots to survive in the wastes? Thank god Dad provided a silencer to go with it.

Beside the pistol lay a Chinese style sword, encased in a rubber lined iron sheath. If the blade didn't have the rubber lining on the sheath I would have shocked myself a dozen times over as I lay it on my bed. The sword was an electrified work of Chinese art and American spoils of war.

Next out of the case was a black full body suit. All black, nearly bulletproof, and looked like it belonged to a cyborg ninja. Despite common sense and my urge to rush, I took a moment to study the armor. It was Dad's greatest gift to me, Mom's design from old pre-war tech. A Heavily modified Chinese stealth armor. Mom and Dad used all their knowledge to make it. The part I loved the most when Dad first told me about it was the stealth field it could generate.

I snapped out of my trance, the gunshots were getting closer. Whatever was happening in the vault was getting closer. I grabbed a set of matching throwing knives from the box, they weren't my first choice of weapon.

With a sigh I unpacked the remainder of the box. With a shitload of speed.

A dozen samples of different meds. Med-x, stimpacks, rad-away, the basics for survival. Particularly in the capital of America's post apocalyptic wasteland.

A grenadier's belt, with six frag grenades, two plasma, two pulse grenades, and two incendiary grenades. A dozen explosives for the survivor... "Guess dad didn't hold back..." I muttered aloud.

I pulled a tan survival bag from the box and stuffed the supplies in the pack. I undressed from my tacky over-worn 'vault 101' jumpsuit. I felt a twinge of anticipation, like every nineteen year old human male, I have had fantasies of what I would do if invisible. The suit was slightly cold, incredibly tight against my skin, and slightly tough to move in, but in my mind was so worth it.

I strapped the 10mm into a hip holster fit into the suit, the sword was strapped along my back and the sniper rifle was reconstructed and secured with a strap. The throwing knives went into the stealth suit's boots, two perfectly formed grooves held both blades tight were I couldn't feel them pressing against my legs. I packed the grenades into the bag, and strapped it onto my back, where they covered the sword and rifle.

I looked into a mirror hanging on my wall, examining myself. I had to admit, apart from the bag, I looked bad ass.

The door to my bedroom opened with a quick hiss.

"Louis, Wake up! " A frantic feminine voice exclaimed. My old classmate and best friend entered my bedroom, just as I pulled on the orange dome helmet of the stealth suit.

She stared at me in shock, my appearance an impossibility for a vault dweller. I drew the pistol in a fluid, well practiced motion, and grabbed her. I covered her mouth, tight enough so she couldn't make a sound. I kept the gun pointed at her and kicked the door switch with the heel of my left leg.

The door slid shut with a clank.

I released Amata from my grip and she fell to the floor, with panic in her eyes. I kept the gun steady, I'd trained all my life for this moment. I couldn't fail my family now.

I cocked the gun, my finger lay on the trigger. All I had to do was pull it.

"Louie?" She questioned. I swore, I always hated that nickname. It was her pet name for me. I always wanted her to pick a new one but she never changed it.

To my eternal damnation, and future grief, I didn't pull the trigger. That decision would bite me in the ass more times than I would ever count on.

I looked at her behind the solid orange visor of my mask, "I'm sorry."

She barely had a moment to panic before I slammed her head into the reinforced steel of the vault walls. She slumped, out cold. I checked her injury, a large bruise, but no broken bones or bleeding.

"Sorry sweetheart, but I've gotta leave."

With a final glance, I left the miniature apartment I had inhabited for eighteen years. It was no surprise to me that I barely got a few feet from my front door before the vault security showed up.

The guard took one glance at me, and yelled, "Stop! In the Name of the Overseer!"

He charged at me, with a police baton in hand. I raised my pistol and shot him in both knees.

He dropped, screaming in pain. The bullets distracted him from the fact he had a gun of his own. I took two more shots, crippling him at the elbows. He screamed louder, and as I was taught, I didn't care.

I grabbed the potential quadriplegic by his collar and lifted him up, the augmented strength from the stealth suit let me lift him, one handed, with ease. "Whats happening?" I demanded, my voice was mechanical all thanks to the helmet's air filters.

The guard looked ready to shit himself, still moaning over his limbs. I dropped him to the floor and pointed my gun between his eyes, which got his attention.

"What is happening in the vault?" I asked.

The guard split his guts. "The overseer wanted me to grab Dr. Sypher's kid. Sypher left the vault this morning and took a load of supplies with him!"

I smiled, unseen behind the mask. "Why the alarms? Is something else going on?"

"When James left the Vault the nest of rad-roaches outside got in, and a second group came up from the reactor. The roaches are swarming the Vault."

"Good." I pulled the trigger. The silencer did its work, and the guard passed on into blissful eternal silence.

I said a quick prayer, the man didn't deserve to die, but I couldn't let my presence be spotted. For all I knew I might have to come back someday.

I tapped a few switches on my pip-boy, and the gauntlet computer gave my command to the suit. With a simmer of air and sound, I turned transparent to the naked eye. I walked away from my first victim, my conscience silent.

I walked down the corridors, empty apart from the occasional roach or guard. I kept low, staying silent. A few of the doors were deadlocked, prompting a tourrettes veteran exclamation of "Fuck!", and forcing me to re-route though the overseers' emergency route rather than straight to the front door.

I got past the diner, ran past the generators, and made it up to the administration hallway when I heard trouble.

"Amata, tell me where he is right now!" I would recognize that arrogant voice. Amata's father, the asshole overseer.

"Dad, I don't know! He was in some kind of black suit! He had all these guns and a bag filled with stuff!"

"Amata. Either you tell me the truth rather than these lies, or I will let Officer Mack interrogate you. "

Another slimy voice added, "I'll make sure she enjoys it as much as I do."

I did not like what I was hearing, I holstered my pistol. The Chinese 'shock sword' needed a test run.

The blade drew easily from its sheath, as the prick overseer walked out, "Enjoy yourself Mack, don't leave any marks please." He laughed, and walked towards me.

I loved being unseen. It allowed me so many opportunities. In my hand, the Asian blade glowed blue under my stealth field. This was gonna hurt the old bastard. A lot.

I leaped forward, jamming the blade threw the man's stomach, and kept my hand over his mouth. Tendrils of electricity arced over his body and he screamed. I eased him to the floor, deactivating the invisibility. "Tell me the Overseer's command code, or you die."

The old bastard looked at me, and paled even more, if that were possible. "She wasn't lying..." I jolted the blade in his innards to remind him of the situation he was in. "Tell me the code old man!" I demanded.

man listed a gibberish string, obvious bullshit to me, I activated the sword for a moment. "Alright!" he screamed, "000388E6, its the master code for all the overseers."

I looked at him with disdain, "Good." I yanked the sword out, and stomped on his wound. The man barely made a sound before he was either dead or unconscious. I really did not care at all.

I walked into the security office, inside Amata was yelling for help, I switched on the stealth field again and entered. Officer Mack, head of vault security was standing in front of Amata. The sick bastard was undressing, smiling, and about to do something I was gonna make him regret about thinking of. The sword made a nearly undetectable humming, as it clipped both his leg tendons. Officer mack dropped to the ground, as I turned visible. The man turned to me with a pistol in hand. I imagine he felt as surprised as he looked as I sliced the gun barrel off the now useless weapon. "Impossible!" He cried. I looked at Amata, my childhood sweetheart and best friend, tied to a chair and clothes torn. My hatred for the thing at my feet increased as he tried in vain to crawl away. I impaled one of his outstretched hands with the sword, then the other. The electrical current running threw my blade added to his discomfort, and burned the wounds shut. I didn't want him to get out that easy. I upped the voltage channeled thru the blade and dragged the man by his throat into the hall.

The mess I made out of him was a nightmare to behold, but he needed to know that you don't do that to women. He should live. If you call what I left behind alive.

When I returned to Amata I left Mack's pistol in her lap, with a new jumpsuit. I raided all the ammo the security office still had, nearly two dozen clips of 10mm ammo. With six clips of 10mm armor piercing. Another dozen stimpacks helped as well.

I had never taken another human life before today, and I needed to leave this metal tomb before my conscious kicked in. I kept walking past people being mauled by rad-roaches, I barely registered my dad's work buddy Jonas, slaughtered in a corner.

The door to the overseer's room took barely a second to pick, and the password was even worse. "Amata?" Seriously, who the fuck made that old bastard in charge? They needed to be shot on general principal. I paused, wanting badly to find and maim the unknown target, but instead walked into the 'secret tunnel' and hit the close switch. A small tunnel filled with roaches later and I was at the vault entrance. The door was surprisingly easy to open, just pull the rusty lever. The chunk of steel that was the door opened with a giant screech and blaring alarms. The vault door opened, and the doors behind me did as well. A baker's dozen of vault security had their pistols trained on me with the bastard overseer bandaged between them.

"Hold it Sypher! Your not leaving the vault!"

I lowered my pistol, placing it back in its holster. Without giving it away I palmed two frag grenades from my belt, ready to release them as needed. I calmly lowered my arms, palms facing behind me.

"Your not getting away Louis. You will be arrested and executed for the murder of the two security officers and Jonas." The old bastard proclaimed.

"Bullshit, You'll have to catch me first." I chose my targets wisely and launched both of the Grenades. The officers ducked and covered, while the half dead man ran back into the Vault.

Within ten seconds the pineapples exploded, wounding and maiming the whole crowd, possibly killing a few.

It brought a smile to my face, knowing the tyrant wouldn't have his little pawns available to bully the good people in the vault for a while. I took a moment to consider shooting them, and decided that the positives definably outweighed the negatives.

Six shots later, a pulled door lever, and the vault was open. The old metal screeched and squealed, giving me a headache from hell.

A gust of fresh, unrecycled air blew past. Even with the suit's air filters I could feel the difference in the air. It was beautiful.

A long dark tunnel was before me, the skeletal remains of people desperate to get into the vault lay in piles at the door. I felt sympathy and pity for the wasted lives of good people that just wanted to live.

"What a waste." I muttered, walking past the bones.

I kept walking forward into the gloom and dark of the cave, even as I swore I heard Amata calling me back.

I don't know how long the tunnel was, but at the end was an unexpected wall. Made out of crappy, falling apart lumber.

I honestly my eye started twitching out of annoyance. The Vault's cave was hidden by a door made of shitty wood? Why the hell were some raider's not using this place for a base or people using the cave as a home?

"The people at vault-tec were fuckin' grade A-geniuses." I bitched sarcastically.

I didn't bother opening the door, I gave the piece of shit a boot to the doorknob and the whole wall collapsed.

I got a perfect view of the wasteland.

The ruins of D.C. Were back-lit by a setting sun, the two hundred year old ruins standing strong against the tides of time, wasteland conflict, and the occasional idiot with explosives.

I looked over the awe inspiring scenery, and wonder at how great the war must have been.

"What's this guy? Some kinda ninja?" A rough voice interrupted.

I groaned, not even five minutes in the wasteland and I was willing to bet I was about to have my first encounter with raiders. Sure enough, five guys dressed in rags and meshed together armor were moving up the hill leading to the vault.

They moved around me, flanking to make sure I couldn't escape. "Is there any reason we shouldn't cut you up ninja boy?" the leader asked.

I flipped the stealth switch for the suit, "Yeah, my disappearing act."

I vanished in front of their eyes and they panicked. I drew the shock-sword, and made quick work of them. A quick slice across the throat. They each dropped with fear in their eyes, and for a moment, I felt like a total monster.

The corpses help nothing but knives, drugs, and five dozen caps between the lot of them. I remember dad lecturing me that caps were standard currency in the waste, and took a side-pouch from the body of a female raider. She wasn't going to use it, and I needed a quick access holder for my new found money.

I double checked the bodies, still finding nothing of use. I moved the corpses away from the vault cave, tossing them off the nearby mini-cliff into the broken pavement that use to be a road. The bodies made a sickening sound as they flopped at their grave. I pointedly tried not to notice.

I walked down the hill and into the ruined town at the base of the road, ignoring my victims in favor of trying to spot any sign of life. I knew the scrap town of megaton was supposed to be nearby, but it was late. I didn't want to try to hike in the darkness. Stealth armor or not if I ran across anything that matched Dad's descriptions of a yao-guai or deathclaw, then I was gonna run and hide like a bitch.

From the road I was on, I could see the rusting walls of megaton. What drew my attention however was the hovering ball of metal that was playing pre-war patriotic music.

My eyes narrowed, my dad warned me about The Enclave, the definition of the road to hell. The moment the ball started talking in the voice of 'John Henry Eden' I knew. Dad was gonna have a fit, but somehow the Enclave were in the capital wasteland. I drew the sniper rifle from my back and placed a perfect shot into the radio robot's speakers. The ball shaped waste of metal dropped to the ground and exploded like a grenade.

Just my luck that it exploded next to a seemingly intact car. I say seemingly intact, because moments later the car burst into flames and I ran just in time to be launched threw the air at Megaton's walls.

My body hurt like never before, the wind was knocked out of me, and I swear I was seeing triple of everything past my visor.

I could just barely make out a robot gate guard turn to me, "Welcome to Megaton." It stated.

I saw something walk towards me in a light blue jumpsuit, I could barely make out a woman's face before she spoke in a irritatingly sweet voice, "Oh gosh, I think you need help!" She exclaimed.

"No duh." I responded.

The blast must have took more out of me than I thought, Because the last I remember, I dropped to the ground in a shit load of pain.