Author's notes:
Yes, I've changed several situations that occur in Fallout.
Yes, I've changed how the war happened and how the world prepared itself.
Yes, the dates are different.
But please enjoy, and any feedback would be appreciated.
And plese read my other Fallout story, "Wanderer - Wreythe's Vision".
Any questions raised in reviews or PM's will be addressed in a public Youtube video soon.
Panting heavily, the prisoner looked back to make sure no one had been following her. She had been planning this escape for weeks already, gathering supplies and marking down what guards were posted where at different times of the day. She endured the routine demoralizing punishment without complaint, not even crying out as the guards had her in pairs or even groups, the bruises on her arms and legs constant reminders of what lay in the shadowy offices above. But now she had a chance; a glimmer of hope in the darkness. Even as the screams of her colleagues reached her, the guards insistent on finding her and punishing her for her 'crimes', she vowed she'd come back and right this most hideous wrong.
"Where did humanity go wrong?" she whispered, looking up the long chute she'd have to climb.
Back in the late part of the 20th Century, near the end of the Cold War, threat of nuclear war was a rampant thought in everyone's minds, the tension running between the USA and the Soviet Union was almost palpable and logic dictates that should a nuclear war be started, no country on Earth would come out intact, so different countries had decided to develop their own survival measures in case the nuclear war ever occurred.
Committees were created in the various world governments where ideas, both logical and ridiculous, were brainstormed by the bucket load; building spaceships and cryo-genetically freezing entire populations were just some of the more logical ideas, and were thrown out the window, until finally several actual possible solutions were found. France had decided to build a giant armored biosphere, capable of sustaining millions of lives until radiation levels had become acceptable outside. Germany, Italy, Spain and a few other western European countries joined in, and each worked together to build giant biospheres in North Africa, where the African government had proposed to sell them the land, in return for large amounts of money, weapons and food..
In the case of England, they had built an underground city that was supposed to be self-sufficient in every way, capable of generating electricity and sustaining underground plant-life. And while it was never employed, and eventually sold off piece by piece, it was not the only one of its kind. Hidden almost two-hundred miles underneath New York lay another city, built in secret and never made public, code-named 'Undercity'. Construction had begun very early in the Cold War, ordered by the President of the time, John F. Kennedy, and was built by low-income workers imported from Africa, who didn't understand what they were building, nor did they really care. It took the quarter of a million laborers over fifteen years and approximately ten thousand lives in order to finish the project, and when they were done, each of the remaining laborers were given a sum of untaxed cash and told to never speak of what they had seen. When it was finished, and completely furnished and stocked with supplies, homes were sold for over fifty million dollars per family. Only the richest of businessmen and celebrities had the money to pay for the places, and only these people who had the money were approached with the offer, in order not to induce a panic by presenting Undercity publically. However, when one famed professor was approached with the offer, not only did he refuse on the grounds of his morals, but he attempted to reveal to the people of the world what was going on. Whilst the majority didn't believe him, a small minority did, and rallies took place outside every governmental seat in America and Europe. Deeming the charismatic and well-known professor to be a threat, the American government took him out, and paid Para-Military forces to stamp out the activists and disappear.
Even when the bombs fell in 2012, years after the Cold War, only the original list of personnel and VIPs were to be admitted, and if they were dead, the offer was forwarded to their closest of kin. The cream of society and science were given access, and over a thousand people were evacuated to the Undercity, and were given new jobs and responsibilities to handle.
Undercity had been built in the sixties, and the decorum reflected the decade's perception of the future, with a sort of retro look mixed in with furniture and bedding more fitting to be seen in a Star Wars movie. Sleek curves and the color red was dominant, and while most of the appliances and systems in Undercity were ancient compared to the technology available before the war, the engineers and electrical specialists went about upgrading as much as they could. Lighting was a big problem this far down below the crust, and many people missed the sun's natural light, so incandescent globes were built and fitted in, producing a light source slightly less artificial then regular globes.
Breeding programs were started and the further expansion of the Undercity was made to be top priority.
While most of the A-list celebrities from Hollywood detested cleaning out toilets or growing vegetables in the underground nurseries, they were cracked down upon by the security forces hired by the now-former American government. One of the biggest problems that people down in Undercity had was that all forms of government were temporarily gone, and one could not go complain about their duties to anyone. Although the president and his deputy had made in down into Undercity, no one was interested in re-establishing the same government, much to the chagrin of the president, who felt cheated by the hand fate had dealt. In order to delegate jobs and duties, a representative from each major field of work; builders, scientists and security, was chosen, and joined together to become a three-member council. Led by their council, Undercity flourished under the conditions they were in, and soon people forgot what the outside world was like before the war. Mothers and fathers taught their children their professions, whether it was plumbing, bricklaying, medicine or physics, for all knew that one day their descendants would have to leave, and forge a new life. People could not afford to allow their professions to die out, unless said profession was considered useless. Actors and actresses became the new lower-class, while electricians and brick-layers were kept in the highest regard. While people could easily make do without new movies or television programmes, circuits had to be made and homes built in order for Undercity to flourish.
While the original population of the Undercity stood at an even thousand, with the breeding program in place, people multiplied like rabbits, so by the end of the century it stood at over five thousand, the maximum number of inhabitants that the facility could support, and the word was spread that the breeding program was not only successful, but was being restricted. And while most of the people were more than happy to wear protection in sex unless told not to, there were those who chaffed at not being able to raise their own little family, and bred in secret.
Babies were hidden down in the reactor level until they grew up, under the care of several women who managed to fake their own deaths in order to care for the babies, but unseen mutations took place, and the kids, having been brought up so close to a nuclear reactor, were horribly mutated. But disaster struck, and soon the reactors were sealed, with only remote access possible, due to the fear of contamination.
Eventually the security forces and medical doctors discovered the excess breeding, and exiled over a quarter of Undercity's residents, including those who had grown up in the reactor levels, slowly moving them through the array of air-tight doors and lifts to the surface.
No one ever tried to come back down, or communicate with Undercity.
Even though the scientists predicted that the worst of the fallout had already died out, with only concentrated pockets of radiation existing on the surface, no one really wanted to leave, which was fine by the Council, who were none too keen on letting anyone else out. The Council decided that it would claim complete power, and gave itself the power to oversee or modify any policy and change made in Undercity, hoping that the citizens would be too far in their debt to deny them, but by the year 2150, more and more of the inhabitants of Undercity wanted to leave, and like every body of government empowered by the people, the Council didn't want to see their power slip away, and started to enforce laws that worked 'for the good of the people.' Security in riot gear marched down corridors, beating anyone who looked at them, smashed down doors of the homes of 'instigators' and even reportedly set fire to a fuse that caused the cave-in on Floor 9, which killed and mutilated over fifty technicians, who according to the Council were gathering to try rushing the exit, destroying the doors that kept Undercity safe from the outside world.
No one was allowed near the exit, and any talk of leaving was physically stopped by security. Soon no one even spoke of those who had left, and the thought of doing so faded away. By 2212, not one single inhabitant wanted to leave Undercity, for they had been told of nameless horrors stalking the surface and exaggerated dangers of radiation, and the current Council ruled with an iron fist. No longer were the council members picked democratically, it had become a monarchy in 2193, and power was the only priority.
When Aimee Radchenkov was just eight years old, her grandmother had sat her down and began telling her stories, stories which had been passed down for generations, stories about the outside world, and the beauty of nature. There were places called 'markets' where one could buy anything he or she wanted, giant pools of water that you could swim in, parks full of green trees and flowers that were beautiful to hold and nice to smell, and sunbathing on sandy beaches where the water met the earth.
Young Aimee had never seen the sun, just like everyone else down in Undercity, and dreamt of what it would look like, tried to feel the glow of the sun on her pale skin. The old pictures and movies had faded so much with age that it was impossible even to distinguish light from shadow anymore, and the computer-generated movies made periodically by the computer programmers were just a mockery of the real thing, for they had only their imagination and what was written in the Council-approved history books to go by.
But Aimee's grandmother would speak to her of these wonders, and would teach Aimee how to put her dreams to paper, and paint pictures of the outside world, as well as speak Russian, a language passed down the older generations to the younger ones, in hope of preserving traditions, and although Aimee had to hide all her Russian exercise books and her paintings, she was happy, and yearned to go outside.
Over the years Aimee would learn more and more, and by sixteen had grown beautiful in the eyes of all around her, with long brown hair to her shoulders, dreamy violet eyes that seemed to sparkle when she was happy, pretty pink lips that caught the attention of almost every guy her age, and a soft smile that would melt the legs off a bandit, yet all she could think about was leaving Undercity somehow. Her parents didn't care for such nonsense, and when she had brought up leaving at dinner one night, she had been sent to her room and told never to speak of such things again.
Aimee's mother and father were both musicians charged with composing classical music for one of Undercity's radio stations, and were held in high regard by the Council, and likewise Aimee was expected to succeed her parent's one day, and continue on the business. Even Aimee's grandmother discouraged her from leaving, stating that with her petite frame of only 5' 3", there would be no way she could take care of herself if the rumors of raiders and monsters were true, and even if they weren't true, then what would she even find up there after so many years of death and destruction.
So every morning Aimee would make her way to the school on Floor 11, just a few kilometers from where she lived, to an old warehouse that had been sectioned off into 'classrooms', with almost no bathroom facilities and light bulbs being broken every day. Schooling down in the Undercity was a tedious process, with teachers who cared more about leaving at the end of the day and drinking up their rations rather than actually teaching the students properly, but they could be forgiven, for the students were even more unruly, for no one really knew why the Council even bothered starting a school. For the past two hundred years all children were forced to follow their parent's profession, so why a plumber or musician needed to know algebra and chemistry was beyond anyone's guess. But school was still compulsory, so Aimee could do nothing to get out of it. She wasn't interested in anything except music, history and leaving Undercity anyways, and definitely not interested in mathematics, chemistry or physics. So she spent her time in class either reading whatever history book she could get hold of or writing little short stories of adventuring to the surface, which she had to hide from any prying eyes, for detection would mean punishment.
History had been changed, as far as she could tell. She had found several books written by different authors which contained very similar paragraphs when referring to the outside world and the Last War. A reoccurring theme was the statement that the Council had always existed, even though several of the longer books alluded to something called a "Democracy", and that a civil war had occurred almost four centuries ago in the land above, yet no reason was ever given why a civil war had been fought in these books, for they stated that the Council had always held power and was never opposed. According to her great-grandmother, who had been a historian, after Undercity had been locked down, the Council had formed a committee of people who would review old history books and change them to whatever the Council wished. Aimee's great-great-grandmother had been on this committee at one point, and rather than destroying countless tidbits of man-kind's history, she had created copies of pages from any book which she deemed too important to lose, before passing on the knowledge to her daughter. From her mother, Aimee's grandmother had then passed on the surviving knowledge to Aimee, and so she had begun to absorb centuries of history that had been thought destroyed. Aimee wandered Undercity, attempting to find secret places to read forbidden books and documents, and worked hard to keep this aspect of her life away from the prying CCTV cameras scattered throughout the city.
By comparison, Jorge Orwell was just a simple boy, a few years older than Aimee at nineteen and was already well on his way on becoming Undercity's greatest mechanic in history.
Tall with broad shoulders that would put a boxer to shame, Jorge had always been bigger than other boys his age; even in school he was the only one able to outstrip his gym teacher when it came to stamina and weight-lifting. But despite his great stature, Jorge was no bully, and stood up for the little guys, protecting those who could not protect themselves against bullies. He made a great deal of friends and fans every time he did, and even though his face could be called 'plain' at best, girls had always liked him for his kind ways and generous attitude.
However, Jorge wished his teachers thought of him in the same way. No matter the subject it seemed, Jorge just couldn't cope with anything beyond the basics; mathematics irritated him, chemistry just confused him and he found essay-writing almost pointless. However, Jorge loved mechanics and practical physics, and used most of his spare time to teach himself how to apply his knowledge of mechanical machines. He spent many afternoons talking to his teacher, a physician named Thorne who worked in Undercity's electrical grid and knew a thing or two about building pre-war artifacts, such as hand-radios and batteries. The only books he bothered to read were the textbooks on electrical circuitry and the manuals kept by personnel down in the generator grid, which he either stole or traded for. At the age of twelve, Jorge had already designed and built a motor which he then built into his go-kart to give him the edge in racing, by fourteen had managed to siphon extra electrical power from the generator rooms below to charge a high-powered taser he had built, then attached it to a long pole and wired a trigger, allowing him the ability to shock people from over a meter away. While he never got a human subject to try it on, he recorded a voltage of sixteen thousand volts, which was enough to shock the rat he caught into a heart-attack. He found it tough to explain to his parents what they had heard when the fully-charged zap from the taser shocked the rat with a loud crack, but they could not disobey the rules of Undercity, so they had taken the dangerous weapon off him and broke it.
Once he was in his final year of school and gained full access to Undercity's library, he spent the time catching up and improving his knowledge of biology, in hopes of creating the world's first powered armor, a concept that had been in development since World War II. Powered armor, or simply 'power armor' was designed to aid the wearer by boosting strength and endurance through use of servo-motors and electrical impulses through the nervous system, however before the Last War research into the project had not really gone anywhere, with the blueprints and concept images that had made their way down into Undercity during the initial occupation having very little on the way of detail.
Jorge's idea was to create a suit of armor that would power itself and not only give the user superior protection against ballistic weapons and melee assaults, but would also allow the user to survive in conditions thought otherwise suicidal, such as wading through nuclear radiation. Jorge had heard of problems encountered by the mechanics down in the generator grid, about the deafening pressure of the lower levels and flooded antechambers, and used this as motivation to build the armor.
Jorge's plan was a simple one: instead of becoming a mere grease-monkey, as he would be due to his father's low aspirations and status amongst the mechanics, he would impress the entire Undercity with his invention and proceed to make his way down into the depths of the generator grid, and investigate any problems the mechanics had reported.
But Jorge was only nineteen, and although vastly more knowledgeable when it came to mechanics then his peers, was no match for the intellect of a real, fully-trained mechanic, and the only progress he had made since his eighteenth birthday was a pair of steel gauntlets that were powered by small mini-engines built into the back of the hand.
Although they could bend iron bars and crush anything but the toughest materials in their grasp, these had already been patented years ago by Undercity's Chief Mechanic, Yaleson, who had named them power fists, his copy being made of a metal alloy of chromium and steel, so Jorge's copy was much too heavy to be of any tactical advantage over Yaleson's. However, Yaleson's power fists had never become standard-issue in Undercity, and only a few were ever made, so even just owning his own pair was an accomplishment.
Jorge couldn't solve the power problems when it came to the rest of his prototype armor, and whiled away many a night with Thorne and his few trusted friends brainstorming and experimenting with different circuit boards, wires and motors, but eventually he understood the problem was not with powering the suit, it was the connection.
While the armor was technically built and had electricity coursed through it, powering hundreds of tiny motors and circuitry, Jorge did not dare to create a bodily link, thereby potentially subjecting himself to deadly amounts of electricity. So while the rest of the potentially-dangerous, unwearable armor just grew dust, Jorge spent increasingly amounts of time in the library rather than as in his lab, worrying his already concerned parents even more. But the gauntlets he kept with him at all times, finding them a great help when it came to his part-time job of moving crates in the mechanical supplies warehouse, and once he had upgraded them with an electrical screwdriver and needles, he started work on setting a control panel on them which would not only allow him to use them as a make-shift Swiss army knife, but also use them to regulate blood flow by constantly sending small shocks through his body. While he had concerns on the amounts of electricity his full-sized suit could send through him, Jorge had carefully calculated how much power his gauntlets, which he named Fisticuffs, could actually generate, and how he could use it. By upgrading the mini-engines with newer and stronger materials, thereby making them more efficient, he could increase the amount of electrical power generated, and started work on upgrading them.
But although Jorge had a way with machines, he definitely did not have a way with communicating his intentions. When his neighbor's TV has been launched straight through the ceiling into the floor above, Jorge had to explain that he was only trying to statically zap his own TV from a short distance away, and that the static zap had missed, and passed through the circuitry in the wall, letting itself through his neighbour's TV through the roof. Unfortunately the neighbour just happened to be the Council representative from the mechanic's faction, who had been watching Jorge for a long time.
When the rest of the Council had been notified, they had decided they could no longer allow Jorge free rein to engage in his experiments; first it had been the stealing of manuals from the generator mechanics, which had led to power malfunctions until new copies could be made, and then it was the destruction of private property. Even Jorge's parents couldn't bear to show up to his hearing, due to the fact that protecting their son would lead to their own persecution, and very quickly the Council had decided unanimously that Jorge should spend a minimum of eight months in Undercity's prison. It was only when Yaleson himself intervened and requested that he be allowed to punish Jorge himself, and used his tremendous influence to persuade the Council did then Jorge avoid prison.
And all the while, even after centuries of radiation and destruction, men did indeed still walk the Earth's crust, some being those who had left Undercity decades ago, some being migrants from the unsealed Biospheres from overseas, but amongst them was indeed one who had been walking the Earth since the last day of Civilization, a ghost of humanity's past, and the key to all knowledge thought lost. He carried the Will and Spirit required to see the greatest of deeds through, and he was slowly making his way to the East Coast.