Megaton was a town built entirely out of airplane parts. It was a town where resourcefulness was a character trait in everyone, who was either a farmer, an inventor, a trader or a small time business owner. It was also one of those towns where everybody knew everybody and almost no secrets were able to be kept, that is of course except for one.
In the house above the Brass Lantern lived a man named Thomas, his dog Dogmeat, and his robotic Mister Handy butler, Wadsworth. Thomas was a man with many secrets, not necessarily bad ones or ones that are particularly interesting, but secrets all the same. For example, Thomas was deathly afraid of the sun because he wasn't able to turn it off at will. Whenever he got too hot he became paranoid, rambling on and on about how he was going to melt or burst into flames. Dogmeat found this rather odd about his master. He did not say so, mostly because he was a dog and unable to speak in the first place, but he thought it all the same.
Thomas was sitting in his room, a hand sewn blanket over his head, trying to find a good reason to stay inside and not move. Dogmeat sat at his feet, occasionally staring up at his master and whining, begging to do something, anything, that was at least remotely fun.
"Don't look at me like that" Thomas said looking down, "I'm not going outside."
Dogmeat growled, annoyed that Thomas was afraid of the stupidest thing anyone could be afraid of, it was almost as if the man had lived in a hole his entire life and was so clueless about the world and how it worked that he was completely inept.
Wadsworth hovered in front of Thomas' room, behind him was Gob, the bartender at Moritary's who was a frequent visitor and one of the few people who hadn't given up on Thomas entirely.
"You have a visitor sir" Wadsworth exclaimed, trying to get Thomas' attention.
Without even so much as looking at anything Thomas groaned and pulled the blanket closer to his body as if it made a difference. Scowling, Thomas stood up, causing Dogmeat to slightly wag his tail, only to be immediately disappointed when Thomas reached for the door he had installed and slammed it shut in Wadsworth's face.
"Go away!" Thomas screamed, "Tell whoever it is to go away!"
Wadsworth turned to Gob, confused and worried about Thomas' behavior.
"Do you want to do it or shall I?" Wadsworth asked.
The ghoul shrugged indifferently, brushed past the floating butler, and knocked on the door.
"Thomas?" Gob began, "You in there?"
Thomas, who was on the bed at this point, covered his head and tried his best to sleep, hoping that if he actually fell asleep people would leave him alone. Dogmeat however denied him and grabbed the blanket, attempting to wrestle it from Thomas' death grip.
"Stop it!" Thomas declared, "You're going to rip it goddamn!"
Dogmeat only continued to wrestle, not caring that the blanket was coming apart or that Thomas was getting extremely agitated to the point where murder was beginning to cross his mind. Dogmeat found it both sad and utterly ridiculous that a blanket would be so important in the life of a man who was afraid of the sun. He assumed that it offered a security that he was unable to provide and this only made him tug harder.
Gob knocked on the door again, this time harder and more forcefully, almost knocking it down, for Thomas was not the best handyman.
"You can't stay in there forever Thomas" Gob said, "Open the door!"
Thomas yanked the blanket up as hard as he could, ripping it and bringing the dog with it, who was fully intent on destroying it if it meant getting his master out of bed and doing something with his day. Sighing a sigh of defeat, Thomas set the blanket down and regretfully made his way toward the bedroom door.
"What do you want?" Thomas asked, opening up the door and wiping his eyes.
Gob rolled his eyes and laughed, "Nice to see you too" he replied, "Now are you going to come to your birthday party or am I going to have to drag you there?"
Thomas, who had completely forgotten that today was his birthday, blinked for a few seconds in an attempt to make sense of things. He stared at Wadsworth blankly, in an almost berating way, and folded his arms as if he were expecting an explanation. Wadsworth, seeing this, laughed nervously and glanced Gob's way, secretly hating the ghoul for indirectly putting him in this position.
"They programmed me to have absolute secrecy sir" Wadsworth admitted, "It was quite difficult getting everything together, not to mention keeping the dog away from the cake."
Thomas, at the mere mention of cakes and parties, turned around back to his room. He was just about to close the door again when Dogmeat stopped him, blocking both his path to bed and his arm from moving to close the door by standing directly in front of him, his paws in front of the door. The dog ultimately knew that Thomas would do what he would and would close the door anyway, but still, it made him feel better about himself that he at least attempted to stop his master from being a complete and total buzzkill.
"Move" Thomas said, almost yelling, to Dogmeat, who remained motionless.
"See?" Gob defended, "Even your dog thinks this is ridiculous. Now come on-"
Gob grabbed Thomas' shirt and pulled him out of the threshold and towards the stairs.
"We've got a party to get to."
Thomas scowled, hating everyone in the world as he whispered every profanity known to man for the blatant mistreatment he was currently receiving. Gob, who heard every word, only laughed and slapped Thomas' back, pushing him towards the door. Thomas turned towards Wadsworth, begging him to stop this madness. The butler did nothing, only stood at the top of the stairs staring at his pathetic excuse for a master. Thomas looked at Dogmeat apologetically, the dog, being particularly weak willed when it came to Thomas, gave in to this and ran down the stairs, walking next to him, brushing up against his legs affectionately. He did not stop Gob's progress nor did he help it. Gob, seeing that he was getting nowhere, stopped walking and pulled out the tattered umbrella he had brought for emergencies.
"Here" Gob exclaimed, "This will help."
Thomas grabbed the umbrella and looked at it, having no idea what it was.
"What is it?" Thomas asked, staring at it, "How do you make it work?"
Gob slapped himself in the face, in complete disbelief that Thomas was so stupid.
"Did that Vault teach you anything?" Gob continued, "It's an umbrella, it's used for protection against the rain. Open it."
Thomas investigated some more, trying to figure its properties and mechanisms, upon finding that it was actually rather simple. Thomas hated simple things, he found them inferior to the complicated nature of Vault technology in that it lacked self-efficiency, something that he considered to be vital to everything.
"Where's the button on this thing?" Thomas whined, frustrated that he was dealing with yet another technologically inefficient thing, "How do you get it to work!"
Dogmeat stared at Thomas, for a moment the dog believed that Thomas was yelling at him, and so cowered a bit, tucking his tail between his legs in submission. The last thing he wanted to do was upset Thomas, and so began licking his master's hand trying to calm him down. Thomas meanwhile, at Gob's instruction, found the small release and pushed it up, opening the umbrella.
Thomas inspected it further and discovered there was a large hole in the fabric, making it almost completely useless for an umbrella. Still, Thomas found some hope in it, and so moved to the Workbench in the corner of the room, returning with an umbrella fixed with medical tape, a poor fix, but a fix all the same.
"Can we go now?" Gob said, "There's people waiting for you."
Thomas nodded and held the umbrella as tight as he could, still even with the umbrella he nervously approached the door. His walk was slow, tempered and even, this annoyed Gob all the more. Wadsworth, who had seen enough, made his way down the stairs, got behind Thomas and began pushing him towards the door with all of his mass, Dogmeat, for his part, led his master to the door, occasionally looking back.
Opening the door Thomas was greeted by the blinding sun. In an attempt to protect himself, he used the umbrella, by putting it in front of him as if it were a shield, instead of over his head like it was intended. Gob stopped for a moment and looked at this display, scratching his head at Thomas' stupidity and complete lack of knowledge. The ghoul leaned in towards Wadsworth, concerned.
"Is he for real?" Gob asked, hoping to be told otherwise.
Wadsworth nodded, "I'm afraid so Gob" the robot answered, "Been that way ever since he came here. I've never seen anything like it."
Gob nodded and shook his head pitifully. Walking over to Thomas, Gob stopped him and took the umbrella from him, holding it right and above the man's head.
"Kind of hard to protect yourself against the sun when it's not over your head isn't it?" Gob said with a laugh.
Thomas nodded nervously and looked around, his hatred replaced with detrimental fear. Every step was a mile and every mile had become ten. It was slow and pitiful going, but it was movement.