Chapter 1: Distant Vault Memories
The first assignment
Yuri woke up in his quarters like he did every day staring at that grey-blue ceiling, illuminated solely with fluorescent light. Rolling out of bed, he crawled into that ugly blue jumpsuit, zipping it right up so he could start the day. It was the day after his 10th birthday party; the previous day, his father James and his friend Amata threw him a nice birthday party. Regrettably, the party was damn near ruined on sight when the overseer showed up just to tell Yuri that his first job responsibilities were the next day. Which is precisely why he is to wake at this hour, 6 in the morning. Not that the time really mattered, the lights never did turn off, did they?
He took a quick stop in the men's restroom to get his day started. The reality of being 10 started to hit him, he's only a child, same as a lot of the other kids his age, but he's already got his first job responsibility. Looking in the mirror, he was often reminded that he looks much like his dad, but sometimes he often tried to search for any and all features that he had, but his father didn't. This is the closest he could ever get to finding out what his mother looked like. The straight, red hair didn't look too much like his father's, the blue eyes weren't shared either. Hell, he was beginning to wonder how he resembled his father at all, but that's what people always told him. Thinking back, he remembered how upset Butch was when he got his first job assignment, the Overseer has a distaste for Butch considering he regularly bullies his daughter, Amata.
"What are you looking at, loser?"
A familiar high pitched voice cut into his train of thought. Butch was standing in the doorway, probably thinking about how he's going to fuck up Yuri's day. "Leave me alone, Butch…" The small redheaded child tried to maintain eye contact, his father always tried to tell him to act like a man when talking to others.
"What are you gonna do? Cry?" Another voice rang out, there came Wally, walking in; and of course, Paul Hannon in tow.
"I know I'm not burning trash like you, Butch." Yuri muttered back. Ahh Butch, the Vault delinquent. "You are so lucky I don't have my switchblade, I was gonna make you pay for what you did to my sweetroll." Butch loved to talk tough, not much place to run if you commit murder down here. Yuri felt tempted to inform the Vault bully that his switchblade is dismantled, and the spring is in the BB gun. Before he could really entertain the thought, another voice interrupted them.
"Ahem!" Officer Gomez had come just in time, his foreboding height over the children was enough to make the bullies lower their heads in shame and walk off. "The Overseer told me to grab you, you're late for work." Gomez is in fact, the nicest guard in the entire Vault. He cares about the children; knows when to be strict and when to be soft. Yesterday, he had prevented Butch from walloping on Yuri after spitting on his own sweetroll. 'Brat, he's been nothing but trouble since the day he was born' Was something Gomez would often utter when Butch was the topic of conversation.
Approaching the Overseers office is never a fun task; be you a 10-year-old taking on your first responsibilities, a guard bringing in his daily report, or even the good doctor. The general consensus seemed to be that the Overseer had a stick up his ass. Yuri was still sour about how it seems the Overseer only showed up just to give him a Pip-Boy and tell him to come to work.
"I trust you had a good time yesterday? Well, it isn't your birthday anymore, so why are you slacking around and showing up late?" Asked Overseer Almodovar, in his usual condescending tone.
"Jonas talked about needing an extra hand in the laboratory. I trust you will obey his every word, yes?" As if he needed to order him around in this regard, Yuri had been helping his dad and Jonas since he was a little kid. "Go to Jonas, he'll have your first assignment." Yuri nodded, it seems that no matter what he says, it'll somehow piss off the Overseer anyway.
At least he had the sense of assigning Yuri into an area he had some level of proficiency in. Turning around in a hurry, he quickly ran down to the doctor's office.
"Dad! Jonas!" Yuri called out to them.
"Hush Yuri, Jonas and I are working on something important." James' calm but commanding voice replied.
Yuri, being quick to reply, and frankly too excited to heed his father's orders turned to Jonas "He assigned me to you and dad! I'm going to be your assistant."
Jonas, obviously happy to hear this news, still had to be strict for James' sake. "Good, now can you fetch me some stimpaks? There should be some in the first aid kit in your room." Jonas gave his first order to Yuri, and Yuri's little heart fluttered in joy.
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