Freedom's Faults
Summary: We all know the story of the lone wanderer from vault 101. But there were other vaults. What if there were more lone wanderers, too? Did they survive, or were they just more victims of the wastes? Adventure/Tragedy, T for swearing and blood.
I don't own Fallout 3, Bethesda does, blah blah blah.
Chapter 1: Motives
Rumours.
Rumours spread like toxic gas in a small room. Such a metaphor becomes even more accurate when one lives in a small place with a population of under 30 people. Despite the size of the community, in a not-so-physical manner of speaking, the people of vault 92, the music vault, were far from close.
Except for Daniel and Sage Jacobson. The twins were inseperable, and had been since birth. Like others around their age, they had been born in the concrete tomb so far below earth's surface, never to see what outside held. Their mother, Lucia, had died when they were only six years old of an unexplained heart attack.
A young Danny had claimed that the vault was "getting to them, trying to kill them all".
This, of course, wasn't a toxic rumour that had spread; no one believed him, after all. No, it was something Toby supposedly 'overheard'. Within a few hours, everyone knew.
Toby was the kid who lived down the hall from the twins. See, vault 92 was always a strong believer in the buddy system. Who knew why, when such a place was supposed to be safer than every other. Guess everything had its faults. Kids were to share rooms with their parents, guardians, whatevers until they became at least thirteen. When this happened, they were moved to the teen's dorms on the lower level.
This, of course, didn't involve a fourteen year old Thomas. He was the overseer's son. Hardly any of the rules ever applied to him.
One by one, they'd all moved down to that floor. Dan and Sage shared the room at the end, beside them was Cassandra and her little sister Jessica (nicknamed 'Jessie' by the rest), a couple of empty rooms, then Toby and his older brother Max.
All being around the same age of 17, the twins, Cassandra and Toby were the ones to hang out a lot. Even through Toby's rude - and fairly sexist - attitude, the four were pretty good friends. Not hard to believe; they did grow up together since birth.
So after band class, like every day, the group got together in Cassandra's room to talk. Except this time it was different.
"Where's Toby?" Jessie asked as the three walked into the room and sat down. She was on her bed, cross-legged, working on what Danny assumed was theory homework. He only shrugged in response to her question, and Sage spoke up from behind him.
"Not sure," she replied, pausing as she took off her backpack, dropped it on the floor and sat on the edge of Cassandra's bed. "He asked to use the restroom in the middle of class.. then never came back."
"Probably got lost on the way, the little dunce," Cass giggled. She, along with Dan, sat down on the floor near the base of the bed. Had Toby been with them, he would be sitting with Jessie, occasionally exiting the conversation to give the younger girl hints with her homework.
Without the last member of their group, the conversation continued, but felt a little empty. Despite this, they didn't worry. After all, the vault wasn't a scary place.
Just over half an hour later, Danny stood up from his spot on the ground, picked up his violin case and glanced over at his sister. He said nothing. His expression was blank with thoughts he hadn't shared. His occasional withdrawn attitude was the reason Jessie feared him until she was seven.
"Guess we better get going," Sage sighed lightly, though her ever-present smile remained gently on her pale lips.
Pushing her long, light brown hair away from her face, she wiggled off the bed, gathered up her things and followed Dan towards the door. Only two feet away from the exit, however, the door abruptly opened and Toby stumbled in, his vault suit darkened around his neck with sweat and his blonde hair stringy for the same reason. No one had a chance to speak before he did.
"Guys, guys, you'll never guess what I just overheard," he panted, resting his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. It took him a moment before he could speak again. He took a deep breath and straightened himself out, voice dropping to a whisper. "Thomas.. Thomas is dead."
Gasps echoed in the small chamber. Jessie teared up. Cassandra sat next to her and pulled her into a hug.
Surprisingly, the first to speak was Danny.
"What happened?"
"Remember that test they did last night? With the loud noises over the sound system?" Toby began explaining, referring to the white noise experiment. Wide, frightened eyes stared at him and the only response he recieved was three nods from the girls. Dan didn't react, just waited for his friend to keep going. "It drove people crazy. Couple of the old people upstairs are goners, too."
A whimper was heard from Jessie and Cassandra glared at Toby for his way of wording things. Dan shook his head.
"That doesn't explain anything. What happened?" he asked again.
"I don't know, man! They said they found him this morning, foaming at the mouth, his room totally ripped apart! Had to shoot him, and the oldies, too." with his explanation, Toby raised his hands, fingers hooked over like claws as if the boy had been turned into some sort of monster. While the girls looked horrified, Danny pressed on.
"Who did you hear this from?" he sounded skeptical. Toby hadn't proved to be a very reliable source over the years. He made up and spread rumours whenever he was bored.
"When I was going to the bathroom, I heard Dr. Malleus talking about it. Turns out he was recording one of them voice notes for the records." he told them, a light smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. Gaze travelling about the room, he raised four fingers on his right hand. "Four dead. And they're doing the experiment again tonight."
By now, little Jess was crying, and her older sister looked close to doing the same. She picked up the smaller girl and stood from the bed.
"Okay, that's enough. Get out of here, Toby, and take your stupid lies with you." she snapped. Her shaking voice told the others in the room that she didn't for a second believe any of it was false.
However, Toby didn't try to defend himself. He shrugged, said a quick good-bye to everyone and left the room. They could hear his boots echo through the silent hallway as he made his way towards the room he shared with Max. The four kids glanced around at each other, sharing their unspoken fear.
"Don't worry, guys, Toby's always making stuff up to scare us," Sage tried to reassure. Dan nodded, but said nothing. Jessie wasn't buying it.
"We'll see you guys tomorrow." Cassandra said softly. Taking the hint, the twins waved to the sisters, and left the room themselves. Hearing the door shut behind them, an uneasy look passed between them. No words were spoken until their own bedroom door closed behind them and they crashed in their beds.
"So what do you think?" Sage asked Dan, staring up at the ceiling. Her own mind was heavy with thoughts, but she always liked to hear her brother's first. His seemed to be a lot more organized than hers. A short pause filled the room while he sighed and ran his fingers through his short, messy hair.
"He's not lying," came the reply. Sage was expecting an answer like that, but at the same time had been hoping and praying that it wouldn't come. She didn't want to believe that people were dying in the safety of their homes. She didn't want to believe that they were in terrible danger. "We have to get out of here."
She didn't want to believe that, either.
"What do you mean, 'get out'? The door's locked!" she pointed out, flipping on to her side to stare at her brother.
"The computer's not hard to hack." he went silent for a moment, almost in guilt. "I've done it before."
Sage felt like she could smack him. "You've done what? What's wrong with you?"
Danny raised a finger to his lips as he glanced over at her, signalling her to calm down. Against her will, she complied. "For emergencies," he replied, "like this one."
She sighed heavily and sat up on the edge of her bed. This life was all she'd ever known; her brother, too, it baffled her that he'd be so willing to leave it all behind. Although they had been wondering.. no, dreaming about what was on the other side of that door. It wasn't so much leaving the vault itself, but the people inside it, trapped here with them. How would their father cope with losing his entire family?
And then there was Cassandra, Jessie, even Toby. The only friends Sage and her twin had ever had. They were like family, too. Could they really just leave everything?
"I don't know about this..." she whispered.
"Sage, this is live or die. I've seen the reports."
"You should keep your nose out of things."
"Then what would be our chances of survival?"
The banter continued like any other fight they had, though this one was so much more tense. It really was as Danny had said. Live or die. After much urging and convincing, Sage hung her head and gave a small, almost invisible nod.
"Fine. I'll go." she surrendered.
"Good," Dan stood from his bed, grabbed his backpack, opened it, and emptied it on the floor. "Get packing. Tonight's the night."
