Canadian Bakin'
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Fallout universe, this story is purely for entertainment.
1. A Damn Good Day to be Vaporized
"Good morning fellow Americans!" A loud-speaker sounded valiant, the voice of a staunch conservative president or a rich business man, probably both in reality.
"Today is the... ONE-HUNDRED-NINETY-FIFTH... anniversary of this great state's inauguration into this wondrous country. Rejoice fellow Americans! We are all patriots and soon we will go forth and repopulate this great nation...
It continued as it had for the 195 years before, with what would be followed by another 3 hours of a mixture of jingoistic raving and a shit version of the US anthem that sounded as if it were a recording-of-a-recording, over-saturated with a fuzzy background noise and tinny vocals.
Her elbows were already sore from having them bent in the same position for so long. The loud speaker made a concluding announcement: "And remember ladies and gentlemen report to The Radium Cafe to have your share of Inauguration day pie!"
That's what the Radium girls of the Radium Cafe would be whipping up today, a vile angular pie of indistinct sugary flavour. She continued to hold the once-lustrous metal tray up to the senior cook ahead of her, staring blankly ahead as the twists she made to prep the oven caused wrinkles to flow across the bold yellow lettering on the back of her jumpsuit "197". The room was cool, but the air stale, and no smell seemed to stick, no matter how many times the girls baked up a batch of vault-tec issued
nuka-chip cookies there was never enough sweetness for their noses to pick up on, at least not her's.
The senior-cook ahead of her finally swung around, with her blonde beehive haircut that didn't move.
"Oh darlin' sorry ta' keep you waitin'!" The southern twang to her voice couldn't possibly have been real. Beehive took the tray
from her hands and gingerly slid it into the oven-door, placid lifeless smile on her face.
Someone nudged her encouragingly and she looked to her right, a woman in her early twenties gave her a smirk. "Oh c'mon 631 don't look all blue and such!" The woman ruffled 631's hair, inevitably having to tug it away as her fingers became entrapped in the young woman's curls.
Yes she was "Jane 631-2" to be exact. She was born in block A and she was assigned to work in block A, just like everyone had been before her and would continue to do so indefinitely after her. (Save for the delinquents that had been shipped off to block D and probably reduced to plasma goo by the overseers) Beehive was officially dubbed "Jane 619" and the touchy young woman beside her was "Jane 630-2", there were a few other girls that worked in the radium cafe, bustling around and talking in their phony-holotape-learned yankee or southern accents, but 631 was particularly bad with numbers.
The oven beeped and Beehive turned her back to 631 again.
"C'mooooonnn the boys from block B will be coming to get their pie today!" Nudger said with a suggestive undertone to her voice.
"Can't say I care much for anyone in block B, 'cept for my dad... and not in that way." 631 answered back, her voice in the monotone-mumble that it tended to take on during her most abysmal days of working at the cafe.
The men at block B were physical labourers, lifters and security officers, 631's father was the latter.
"You know, I think it's about time you change yer' attitude, I happen ta' be excited about Inaugarashun' day! The holo-theatre is going to be playing Birth of a Nation 2 today! Gawsh' I love seeing our flag behind them' brave soldiers! By the way y'all know what ever happened to the first Birth of a Nation movie? 'Parently it was about some men wearin' pointy hats! Ain't that weird?"
Beehive broke into her ramble, she usually spoke very fast when she was excited.
The oven beeped a second time and Beehive began to slide out the square-ish sugary pies, the surfaces of which were a brown-grey colour, most comparable to a burnt gruel. The atmosphere in the room became a bit more excitable as everyone in vault 197 would soon be heading into the cafe to receive their slice of pie.
A mechanical hum could be heard through the hallway as a maintenance robobrain passed by, its long arms had a way of flailing comically as its track wheels whirred frantically. Unusually however the door to the cafe opened and there stood the robobrain, arms still flailing a bit, all of the girl's attention was on their robot superior, but it had to pause awkwardly to process its speech.
"JANE 631-2... PLEASE REPORT TO BLOCK D IMMEDIATELY. THANK YOU." Then it proceeded to back up- while still facing them, banging its arm on the door frame and whirring off again.
A pang of fear shot through 631, the girls continued working around her but it was dead-silent. Beehive gave her an extremely forced smile, the corners of her mouth curling horribly all the way up to her cheekbones. She may as well have said "Aw shucks darlin', yer' dead!"
631 took a deep breath, if chance had it that she wasn't going to be vaporized it was best that she not keep the fascist robot overseers waiting thereby giving them an excuse to vaporize her. She puffed her chest up like a terrified blowfish and tried to seem as large as she could as the Radium cafe door shut behind her.
631 pushed the "D" button by the elevator doors and the door gave a metallic 'crunch' as it closed shut and sank further into the boxy culmination of concrete and metal that was vault 197. A muffle-y women's voice played over the elevator comm.
"Are -ou feeling sic-? Are yo- vomiting, experienci-g bloody -rhea or noticing strang- ski- deformities? Relax! Ask your -octor about RadX, RadX -an treat even the -ost seriou- case of -adiation sickness at a low-low -ost. Ask your -octor abo-t RadX! serioussymptomsmayoccursuchasleuchemia,severedeformities,massiveorganfailure,orsuddenboutsofinsanity."
631 felt as if all the air in the elevator was being contained in her lungs, her chipped nails were digging into the lighter skin of her palms and she could swear that her blurred reflection in the shiny elevator door appeared several shades brighter than typically, she seemed as white as Beehive or Nudger when in reality she was one of the few black individuals living 197. The door slid open. The hallway of block D was much darker than the standard vault corridors she had strolled through all her life. it was bathed in a dim yellow light and the walls weren't lined with Uncle-Sam pointing accusing fingers or soldiers in great big metal suits, instead they were bare and the whir of track wheels could be heard down the long corridor that had been revealed to
her.
A robobrain turned a corner at the end of the hall not 4 metres in front of her. Its arms were significantly less flail-y than the previous one she had seen, and across its would-be torso read: Overseer 1-D and when it spoke it did so in a human-simulated voice.
"Hello Jane-631-2, thank you for coming, you are here because John 633 has requested a human mediator." The robobrain began rolling backwards slowly staying facing her as if to be polite or intimidating, 631 assumed she should follow. They turned right at the end of the hall, the corridor was largely the same, save for the numbered doors that now appeared to 631's left.
631 relieved, albeit more confused as to the reason she was here. She had never heard of a "human-mediator" not in the dictatorial-robot-ruled confines of vault 197, perhaps the overseers were making progressive strides.
The robobrain came to an abrupt stop at door 8-D.
"When the door opens you will step inside, do not worry, I will accompany you. The prisoner's threat level is: E: ANNOYANCE: PESTERING MEAT-BAG. Be warned. Thank you for your compliance Jane 631-2."
The door slid open, it took a moment for 631's eyes to adjust to the regular florescent lighting. Within the room there was a small bed in the corner, and a table opposite the bed complete with two chairs, one of which was occupied by who 631 presumed to be "John 633" he looked about 22 or so, the same age as her (to be expected as they were only 2 numbers off), he was slim with a head of short messy brown hair and had strong facial features, if it wasn't for his patchy 5-o'clock shadow and utterly unamused expression he might have been ideally handsome.
He looked at her and his eyebrows raised a bit, but not enough to wipe the contempt out of his expression.
631 crossed her arms in front of her chest and shrugged. Shaking the mop of her curly black hair as best she could away from her eyes.
"So, uh... what?" She glanced into his eyes before his gaze was too much to handle, she had been intensely socially awkward since she was a child.
"Well erm... I'm Edison." He couldn't keep his eyes locked onto hers, he had been insufferably afraid of people since he was a toddler.
They both sat silent for a few moments, her arms crossed and his elbows on the table. Until she had noticed that he had called himself something other than "John-and-then-a-number". She had never met him before, he probably had never seen the likes of block A unless he had a liking for the "sweets" at the Radium Cafe, or inauguration pie.
"Wait... Edison? I'm Jane. Well I mean I'm not Jane, but... you called yourself something that wasn't, you know, manufactured." She stomached eye contact for a few seconds and it soon became bearable.
"Yes, my mother gave me the name Edison, Edison Wulss, I think the name is terribly long really and I prefer "Ed" or "Eddie" but, not the point. I need your help." His speech was jagged, disjointed and he had strange body language as he spoke. Though it was the substance of what he said that was the odder of the bunch to 631. He had a name a real name. And he was complaining about it? She clenched her fists in an envious-internal-anger.
"My help?" She too looked over at the robobrain standing beside her silently, if he hadn't been equipped with lethal energy-spewing lasers that could fry them both in an instant his presence might be a flavour of endearing.
"Yes, I asked this overseer here to bring me specifically one of the Radium Cafe girls, because- well your jobs seem miserable, I mean 'baking' that military-ration quality garbage all-day must be quite boring, so I was hoping that you would be full of misery enough to want to... escape the vault with me, or at least help me? But not that Beehive lady, she makes me kind of uncomfortable." 631 swallowed a gut-full of air and held it down as she slowly turned to the robobrain, who- despite what she had fully expected, was not firing a barrage of lasers Edison's way.
"Are you insane?! This thing is going to kill us!" 631 hissed in a frantic whisper, her brows furrowed like an angry dog.
"Oh, don't worry, robots are really much easier to manipulate than humans, especially ones programmed with such a simplistic set of logical guidelines as these. I've disabled the overseer of block C in a sense, that's why I'm here, and I'm the only technician that can fix it, therefore my life is essential for running an efficient vault. So don't worry, we're probably as safe as we would be eating that horrible inauguration pie." 631 again took a double take of the robobrain to her left.
"So you're saying that we can get out of here? But... what's the outside even like?"
"Better than here... probably." He replied.
His incertainty was worrisome, but 631 saw red, first she thought she was going to be brought down to block D and executed, then she thought she would be executed again for "fraternizing with a criminal" and now she had been propositioned by an awkward vault-technician to run away with him.
"Yes." She practically spat up, eyeing the overseer.
"Well then, we've got ten minutes to get our asses moving."