Fallout 76/Universe is owned by Bethesda.
Personnel Quarters, Vault 76, Little Kanawha Mountain, West Virginia, USA, October 23, 2102
The big day had come, Reclamation Day, and I had overslept it.
This wasn't apparent to me at first when I woke up in my bed of my own personal quarters inside of Vault 76, feeling like death had come by and puked down my throat and was slugging my skull with a mallet. I had never felt so terrible in my life, and if I had to admit it to myself (painfully), then I would have to say that I probably had overindulged a bit during the Last Night Party when the Vault-Dwellers were celebrating a day that they had been waiting for for twenty-five years and that I had been preparing for my whole life more-or-less. Reclamation Day was here, and the Vault had gotten together for one last proper luau to celebrate the efforts we had gone through… and the things we were about to accomplish.
And I had went and overslept while suffering a massive hangover.
I rolled out of my bed partially, my feet dangling as my head lolled, way too heavy for my neck as I groaned in suffering, feeling too hot as my head decided to play a Dean Martin track inside my own skull to remind me that perhaps I should lay off on the drinking. I couldn't remember actually drinking that much, but then again I was certainly trying to drink with people who were older than I was, who had a lifetime to gain a tolerance, and bent the rules for me since it was Last Night. The Overseer had disapproved (that was her job, after all), but I felt it was a moral obligation to rebel against the rules, especially for Last Night. Being the youngest resident in the Vault led towards that conclusion, feeling it was my duty to be the Vault rebel.
It didn't hurt that the Overseer was my mother. That was just another token in the jukebox.
It took me a few minutes to wipe the gunk out of my eyes, lament my tortured condition, and find my pair of Jangles the Moon Monkey fuzzy slippers as I made a quick dash to my connected lavatory, finding the toilet easily enough to begin regurgitating the contents of my stomach, heaving several times as hot foul-tasting liquids were vomited out, leaving a sour taste in my mouth. I got to learn the art of holding my own hair back, leaning my head to one side while cradling the toilet, ejecting more sour bile and alcohol into the toilet. The next few minutes are spent hugging my toilet; I was suffering too much to realize how undignified it was as I rested my head on my arm against the toilet bowl seat, not even considering this was where my naked bum sat. My head was too heavy, I felt like sleeping to make the agony go away, and the inside of my mouth tasted like copper and bad orange juice.
Actually, orange juice sounded pretty nice right about now.
I don't know how long it took me to unpeal myself from the toilet, but I did it in a semi-clumsy manner, still trying to hold my head upright while walking as if I was magically four times my own age, everything stiff and sore. Why did my body have to act so stiff and achy, too? Wasn't my head hurting bad enough? Lamenting about it did nothing but indulge in my own melodramatic whinging as I puttered back into my bedroom, looking at the Wakemaster 3000 Alarm Clock that sat on the head bureau of my bed, blearingly looking at the time.
The short hand was on the eight. The long one on thirteen. 08:13 in the morning?
The Vault would be opening up at Noon, a little more than three hours from now.
That nap was sounding better and better. Mom would come find my soon enough, no doubt.
I flopped back on my bed, rocking out in my Vault-Tec pajamas that I somehow managed to get myself into after the party without knowing it, and I used the pillow to knock myself out pretty good, half of my leg dangling off the mattress as I snuggled my warm, warm, comfortable bed as I sunk past my throbbing head and aching body, embracing the comfort and the sleep monster that came and pounced me.
When I woke up again, it was 11:32 in the morning.
I was feeling a good deal better as I sat up and stretched, only feeling a lingering bit of throbbing in my head and achy-ness in my body, much more bearable than before. Feeling pleasant, I turned to look at my bed's headboard where my alarm was sitting next to my holotape player, the cassette still in the holder as I pressed it down and hit the play button to play the tape that I called Awesome Mix, Volume One as the sweet voice of Dion came to rescue me.
"Oh, I'm the type of guy who will never settle down,
Wherever pretty girls are, well you know that I'm around.
I kiss 'em and I love 'em, 'cus to me they're all the same,
I hug 'em and I squeeze 'em, they don't even know my name…"
"They call me the wanderer, yeah I'm the wanderer," I began to sing with Dion, "I go around and round and round and round." I get out of my bed and kick off my Jangles slippers as I went to my dresser and open up a drawer to find my danties in the top drawer, pulling out a clean bra and panties, setting them on top of the dresser as I go to the next one below it where the undershirts and socks were at, pulling out a pair of each before I go to the third drawer to see several sets of Vault-Tec Vault Suits, that cheerful cornflower blue with gold-embossed thread and numbers greeting me as they had every day of my life. I shuck off my Vault-Tec jammies and toss them into a laundry hamper and head towards my personal shower as I continue to sing The Wanderer with Dion as I turned on the water and adjusted it to the way I liked it; just this side of scalding. I stand under the flow of water as the tape goes to the next track that I know by heart, shampooing my long brunette hair as I begin to sing along with Nat King Cole.
"Love me… as though there were no tomorrow.
Take me… out of this world tonight.
Take me… make me forget my sorrow,
So when I wake… tomorrow; I'll know that our love was right.
Kiss me… as if it were now or never.
Teach me… all that a heart should know.
Love me… as though there were no tomorrow.
Oh my darling, love me; don't ever let me go."
"Love me, as though there were no tomorrow…" I sang as I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair after lathering it, "Oh… my… darling… love me… don't ever let me… go." I finished the song with Nat as I flipped my hair forward to get all the shampoo suds out before getting a bottle of conditioner and squeezing the goo into my hands and working it into my hair and scalp, from root to tip before flipping it back behind me.
"OOO-hoo-hooo-ooo…hoo-ooo-hoo-ooo… sixty-minute man!" I began singing the next song as I got my body wash and squirted it in my loufa, my left foot tapping to the song by Billy Ward and the Dominos. "Sixty-minute ma-aa-aa-an!"
"Lookie here, girls, I'm telling you now,
They call me Lovin' Dan.
I rock 'em, roll 'em, all night long,
I'm-a… sixty-minute man! (Yeah-yeah-yeah!)
If you don't believe I'm all I say,
Come up and take my hand.
When I let you go, you'll cry 'oh yes!',
'He's-a… sixty-minute man!'
There'll be fifteen minutes of kissin',
Then you'll be hollerin' 'don't stop', (don't stop!)
There'll be fifteen minutes of teasin', fifteen minutes of squeezin',
And then fifteen minutes of blowing my top!
If you want a man of treatin' you right,
Come up and see ol' Dan,
I rock 'em, roll 'em, all night long,
I'm-a… sixty-minute man!"
By the time I finished the song, I had finished lathering my body with my unscented body wash, cleaning out the residue for my loufa before standing under the shower to rinse my hair and body off, taking a few more minutes to enjoy the heavenly shower. It seemed to leak away the aches and pains that I was suffering before, and when I turned off the flow of water and wrapped myself with a monogrammed towel with the 'VT' logo on one corner and took another towel and wrapped my hair with it to dry it out, I was feeling much better as Peggy Lee came on, and I began to sing along as I started to dry myself off.
"Play the guitar, play it again, my… Johnny.
Maybe your cold, but you're so warm… inside.
I was always a fool… for my Johnny.
For the one they call… Johnny Guitar.
Play it again… Johnny Guitar.
What if you go, what if you stay, I… love you.
What if you're cruel, you can be kind, I know.
There was never a man, like my Johnny.
Like the one they call… Johnny Guitar.
There was never a man, like my Johnny.
Like the one they call… Johnny Guitar.
Play it again… Johnny… Guitar."
I went from drying my body off to drying my hair as Dion came back on. God Mom hated my Awesome Mix, me having selected the songs from the Vault library when I was twelve and didn't even know what half the songs really meant. No doubt having a twelve-year old girl singing about a sixty-minute man with no idea what that was in reference to was undoubtedly a source of stress for my Mom. As I began singing the next song, I actually remember Mom sitting me down and telling me what it actually meant.
"Here's my story, it's sad but true," I sang as I began to dry my hair a section at a time, "it's about a girl that I once knew… she took my love and ran around…" I continue scrubbing my hair with the towel, "…with every single guy in town."
"Hey-hey, bomb-ba-diddy-diddy, hey-hey, bomb-ba-diddy-diddy,
Hey-hey, bomb-ba-diddy-diddy, hey-hey, bomb-ba-diddy-diddy,
Wooooaaaaahh, oh-woah-woah-ooooh, oh-woah-woah-oooooh,
Dat-dat-dat,
Hey-hey, bomb-ba-diddy-diddy, hey-hey, bomb-ba-diddy-diddy,
Hey-hey, bomb-ba-diddy-diddy, hey-hey, bomb-ba-diddy-diddy,
Wooooaaaaahh, oh-woah-woah-ooooh, oh-woah-woah-oooooh,
Ba-ahhhhhhh!"
"Yeah, I should have known from the very start," I start singing as I dried my hair, "this girl who left me with a broken heart. A-listen people on what I'm telling you…
"…keep away from a-Runaround Sue! A-yeah-yeah!
"I'm miss her lips and the smile on her face,
The touch of her hair and this girl's warm embrace.
So if you don't want to cry like I do…
"A-keep away from a-Roundaround Sue! A-woah-woah!
"Hey-hey, bomb-ba-diddy-diddy, hey-hey, bomb-ba-diddy-diddy,
Hey-hey, bomb-ba-diddy-diddy, hey-hey, bomb-ba-diddy-diddy,
Wooooaaaaahh, oh-woah-woah-ooooh, oh-woah-woah-oooooh,
Ba-ahhhhhhh!"
"She likes to travel around," I moved from the roots to the tips of my hair, rubbing the towel and my hair between my hands, "she'll love you but she'll put you down. Now people let me put you wise… Sue goes out with other guys!" I sing out loud as I toss the towel towards the laundry hamper. "Here's the moral and the story from a guy who knows," I pick out my panties, "I fell in love and my love still grows. Ask any fool that she ever knew," I slip them on and grab my bra, "They'll say keep away from a-Runaround Sue!" I clip the hooks into their catches in front of me before I spin the undergarment around and slip my arms through the straps, adjusting the strap and cups to a more comfortable fit. The next song came up by the Marcels with me singing along.
"Bom-ba-da-ma-bom, da-da-ma-bom-bom, da-da-dang-dang-dang, da-da-de-de-de-Blue Moon.
Moon-moon-moon, Blue Moon. De-dede-de-Blue-blue-blue-Blue Moon. De-dede- Blue Moon-moon-Blue Moon.
Bom-ba-da-ma-bom, da-da-ma-bom-bom, da-da-dang-dang-dang, da-da-de-de-de-Blue Moon.
Blue Moon…
you saw me standing alone
Without a dream in my heart,
Without a love of my own!
"Blue moon…" I sing as I slip on my undershirt and pull it down to my hips, "you know just what I was there for, you heard me say a prayer for, someone I could really care for!" I begin to slip my Vault Suit on, looking at the time. It's 11:50, and no doubt Mom's probably going to bend my ear if I'm late. I don't doubt she's got some speech or whatnot for Noon for Reclamation Day, and I'll never hear the end of it if I'm late to something that the Vault's been waiting for for the past twenty-five years.
Probably shouldn't have slept in.
Zipping up my Vault Suit, I run a quick hairbrush through my brunette locks to make it somewhat managable and not like I just had a horrible hangover as I take a hairband and slip it behind my ears and push it up over my hair to keep it out of my face and at least making the front look presentable as I look at my tosseled bed, the clothes semi-hanging out of the laundry hamper, and the fact that I hadn't really cleaned up after packing everything into my duffel bag for Reclamation Day.
Hey, I'm nineteen. I'm suppose to bend and flout rules.
I head out after turning off my holotape player, promising myself that I would grab Awesome Mix Volume One before heading out so that Awesome Mix Volumes Two through Ten would be together as I walk through the small personal quarters that were issued to me when I was sixteen years old, seeing a slightly-unruly living quarters that had been picked through between staying and going amongst all my worldly goods for what I liked to call 'The Big Day'. Now the big day was here, and I found myself looking at my Vault room with wistful nostalgia before I head out through the access to meet with the others. I haven't even left and I'm getting homesick?
Ugh. Mom would say I told you so.
I pass my Pip-Boy 2000 Mk. IV over the door's control access to open the door to my personal quarters and walk into an empty hallway where other quarters littered each side, where the other Vault-Dwellers lived for the past twenty-five years since the big Vault door closed on Vault 76, ensconcing the residence inside and protecting them for a nuclear war that happened before I was even born. I frowned at the sight of the empty hallway and figured that everyone was already in the Atrium and I was the only one silly enough to be running late as I head towards the large duel-floor room where the Last Night Party had been and undoubtedly where my Mom would address the residence with one final send off before Reclamation Day officially began.
Almost every single one of them had been preparing for this day for longer than twenty-five years, having gone to Vault-Tec University, selected for their intelligence and expertise, and sequestered into Vault 76 before the bombs fell. So no surprise, the late-comer (ha-ha) was going to be late, and I'd probably have everyone stare at me as I show up right at the last minute. Perfect.
I went through the Personnel Quarters section of the Vault and into the Atrium… and found it empty.
"Um… hello?"
Most of the Last Night Party evidence had been cleaned and swept away, but the banners proclaiming 'RECLAMATION DAY!' were still hanging off of the walls and guide rails of the open-air second floor as I walk into the Atrium to see that no one was around. Was the speech happening somewhere else? The Vault Door, perhaps?
"Ah! Miss Collins!"
I turned to see Crutchley, one of the Vault's resident Atomic General's Mr. Handy's, floating nearby in the Atrium's lower level. One of its gimbled eyes were focused on me as the lower body rotated while its spherical head stayed in place, changing which telescoping 'arm' faced me, selecting not to have its blade, pincher, or miniaturized blowtorch point at me.
"Crutchley! Where is everyone?" Crutchley was my friend when I was a little girl, a child without other children to play with. I don't know how I came to recognize Crutchley out of the two dozen other Mr. Handy's in the Vault when I was younger, but I remember playing with the Atomic General's robotic assistant for hours every day with whatever imaginary games a little girl could come up with. Despite the dozens of Mr. Handy's, I knew and recognized Crutchley on the spot, the little nicks and buffs on his metallic case, the way he would spin or move his 'eye'. Likewise, Crutchley was the only one who had played with me when I was a child. "Are they at the Vault Door?"
"Miss Collins, everyone has left." The Mr. Handy told me, stupefying me for a moment.
"Wai-wai-wait. What do you mean 'everyone's' already left?" I ask, my voice sounding exactly what I was feeling; shock with a hint of betrayal. "The door opens at noon! That's only a few minutes from now."
"Miss? It's nearly midnight."
Oh my God, this can't be happening…
"M-Midnight? I slept though an entire day? How is that even possible?" I felt the sudden urge to cry, grief and anger exploding with me. I had lived my entire life in the Vault, knew every one of the five hundred Residents, had grown up with them! And then… they just left me? Went out the door without one of them looking around for the Vault's youngest resident? Hy hear twisted sharp in my breast at the thought of five hundred people on a great exodus… and me not being there. Tears burned my eyelids as the stab of betrayal came sharp and hard. "You're telling me they left me behind on Reclamation Day?" That couldn't be possible! I was literally the Vault's future! The only child born within its confines! Vault 76 had been created to house five hundred trained scientists, Doctors, engineers, physicists, technicians, and civil-trained personnel to go forth after twenty-five years sequestered in the Vault to reclaim America. To rebuild, to grow, to bring about a better future after a great and devastating war. I was one of those very goals; children were the future!
And they left me behind?
No, that couldn't be possible. There was at least one person who wouldn't have left without me at her side. She would be sick with worry if I hadn't been there at noon.
"Crutchley, where's my mother? Where's the Overseer?" I asked, looking at the main eye focusing on me as its reticle expanded slightly.
"Overseer Barbeau left Vault 76 at a minute after midnight, Miss Collins. Nearly twenty-four hours ago." The Mr. Handy told me in his robotic voice, and I felt myself getting dizzy, swaying on me feet as the room swam a little.
They… they left me. They all left me, including the one person I never, ever thought would have ever done that.
Overseer Adrienne Barbeau. My mother.
"I… I think I'm going to be sick." I muttered, my stomach going sour with the revelation as I stood in a Vault, it's sole occupant. Five hundred people just up and left without looking back, not one person looking for me? I find myself leaning against the nearby wall for support as hot tears ran down my cheeks, the grief winning over the anger. No, there was no way my Mom would have just left without me, without telling me. She raised me for nineteen years! To just… vanish? At the stroke of midnight while everyone else was partying or sleeping it off?
Like I was?
"Miss Collins, the Overseer left you some things in her office for you to explain the situation. She said it was most imperative that you listen to them after everyone else had left." Crutchley told me, and what he had said… stopped my grief for a moment.
Wai… what?
"Wai… what?" That sounded a lot like I was meant to be last, not merely abandoned. Mom had… done this? But why?
I needed to know.
I was already moving towards the Overseer's office, wiping away my tears as the anger, grief, and betrayal faded towards something a little more vindictive, a little more… it wasn't curiosity. It was a need, it was powerful, and I had to know. Determination, perhaps. I went through the Atrium and up the stairs to the second level, going onto the plated catwalk that would access my mothers' office as I went to the door and passed my Pip-Boy over the control access, only to get a denial beep. That… was a first.
"Voice print identification, please." A robotic feminine voice came, surprising me. That was new, too.
"Samantha Lynn Collins." I said, trying not to sniffle my way towards the strange question. What was going on?
"Voice print identification confirmed. Thank you for choosing Vault-Tec." That had me snort as I sniffled a little, wiping away the last of my tears as the door slid open to my mother's office that overlooked the Atrium. I walked into a room that was so familiar to me; the large desk that dominated the center, a small bank of monitors that were now dark, a few work-related and personal items on the desk, and the terminal that my mother worked on. I remembered this office well, having played in it when I was a child until I got to be too big and energetic to be confined to an office with a woman working on managing a Vault. The sight of framed pictures of me on the wall along with taped-up drawings I had done decorated the office wall to the right of the desk, and seeing that made me smile. No, there was no way Mom just left me. I knew we had been butting heads on and off for a couple of years (I am a teenaged girl, after all), but we loved each other. She was my Mom, and I was her daughter.
There was no way she would abandon me. Something else was going on.
On the desk were four items that weren't there before, sitting next to the Vault-Tec Terminal. Three of them were holotapes. The last was a holotape player.
Each was labeled To Sam with a corresponding number as to which to play first.
I sat in my mother's chair, my hands touching the armrests, remembering spinning in this very chair, giggling like a little girl as Mom spun me about, calling it a 'merry-go-round'. I remembered snuggling up to her while she worked, looking so stressed that even my youthful self noticed and did the only thing a child could; giving her a hug. I remember being older, coming to the Overseer's office about my grades and homework as a Vault full of scientists, engineers, and technicians tried to beat me to death with education, teaching me to be like them; one of the best and brightest. That hadn't panned out quite as hoped, being merely mediocre in most everything save mechanical skills; I was good with my hands, but that was it. I remembered… the arguments, the tense times, the Overseer having to look upon a Resident and not a mother upon her child. The past few years, things had been… strained. I was a young woman couped up in a Vault where everyone was at least twenty-six years older than I was, the next 'youngest' person having turned forty-five this year. Now my mother wasn't here and I was regretting those silences and quiet resentments.
I looked to the holotapes, and saw To Sam #1. I took the cassette, and plugged it into the opened tray before closing it.
Then I hit 'play'.
Author's Note: While I've done a few Fallout FanFics before, I've never released any of them. This is my first effort for Fallout 76 (published or not), and I took a bit from the script of Fallout 3, that wonderful plot that had the Lone Wanderer looking for his/her father. But instead of you mysteriously 'sleeping in' and being abandoned, I came up with another reason for The Resident to miss the green light. And it ties in with the fact that she's the only child in the Vault. PLOT IS INVOLVED!
In FO76 Canon, there were supposedly children in the Vault, the Overseer mentioning that the opening of the doors finally beating the excitement of 'the first Vault child born', suggesting there had been children, and possibly multiple of them. Which makes since that a population would have kids over a span of 25 years. A part of this story will explain how that was handled (plus the awesomeness of Vault-Tec and their creative projects) with why Sam is the only one, how, and why. I worked it out. I think you might like where I'm going with it.
For the unnamed Overseer, I went with the voice actor's name, Adrienne Barbeau. Samantha Lynn Collins I borrowed from my Mass Effect Fanfics, the OC Marshal of Therum from Where The Law Stands Tall and Of Lions And Angels. Mostly because she's an established character in my mind and I already have massive bio pertaining to her that I'm very familiar with.
The holotape player I liken to a portable cassette player. Yes, I'm old enough to remember those. You... do know what I'm talking about, right? I'm trying to remember when they stopped officially making those. It's been... twenty years, probably.
And I stole Peter Quill's Awesome Mix. The playlist comes from some Spotify playlist, and I randomly selected some rather inappropriate songs for a young girl to be singing out loud (Dion's The Wanderer, Billy Ward and the Dominos' Sixty Minute Man, Dion's Runaround Sue) with a mix of some classics (Peggy Lee's Johnny Guitar, Nat King Cole's Love Me As If There Were No Tomorrow, and the Marcel's cover of Blue Moon). Since Fallout is particularly famous for its 30's-60's pop music, to not use it is a little criminal. And typing in all those bomb-ba-da-ta-bombs was a righteous pain.
I don't know the name of the lookout/mountain that Vault 76 happens to be impaled in. Looked up physical maps of the West Virginia area (sadly the game map isn't that accurate) but I've got a paint file plopped where V76 should be compared to State Route 86 and Flatwood are (yes, Flatwood WV is a real town).
As for the many quests, events, and the MMORPG that Fallout 76 happens to be, you'll just have to read and see. But I have worked this out. You're not going to be the only living thing in existence.