Well, here it is. Chapter 2. I changed a few things from the actual storyline and I hope it makes it better in the long run.
Amata waited in her room as the alarms continued to sound. Her father had told her to stay put and refused to explain anything to her. Normally, she would have continued to riddle him with questions but the look on his face was pure fury. So she quietly obeyed and was now waiting. But her curiosity was getting the better of her. Every few seconds she found herself closer and closer to the door until she eventually was walking out and looking around. She pulled the bobby pin from her hair and knelt near her father's office door and went to work at picking the lock. She'd gotten good at the art when her father kept grounding her for going into the closed sections of the vault and would lock her in her room. Of course, she always picked the lock and continued dragging Douglas back there.
Just as she was about to open the lock, she heard rush of feet outside of the door. Thinking fast, she quickly ran into living room and tucked herself behind the sofa, just out of sight of her father. She hoped he wasn't coming to check on her otherwise it would be obvious that she was no longer in her room. Just as she situated herself comfortably into the hiding spot, her father rushed in. A second later, three guards followed with a shape in between. They threw the person into the chair at the desk near the entrance to her father's office, and the Overseer began a calm pace that he always did when he was interrogating someone.
"Why did you let James out?" He demanded to know. When the man said nothing, Alphonse motioned to one of the guards, one she recognized as Officer Mack. Mack nodded, then raised his police baton and brought it down on the shape. Amata covered her mouth to keep her surprised gasp from being heard. The man let out a pained grunt and doubled over in pain. "Do I have to repeat myself Jonas?" Jonas? Why was her father torturing Jonas?
"Not everyone is afraid of you, Alphonse." Jonas replied calmly.
"I should have known that assigning you to be James' assistant was asking for insubordination to breed. I had hoped it would have to opposite effect. Now, tell me why James left the Vault?" Her father answered. James left the vault? What the hell is going on? When Jonas didn't answer, the Overseer motioned to Officer Mack once more. Another raise of the club and another grunt of pain. Amata was forced to watch in silence as the interrogation turned more into a torture routine. When Mack hit Jonas for a fifth time, he didn't stop until Jonas was limp against the floor. Officer Gomez, which she recognized second, took a step back as he watched beat Jonas to death, a green tint across his face. Horror flashed across his eyes.
"Nice going Mack, you killed him." The officer next to Mack muttered. "How are we supposed to get what we need now?" The Overseer scratched his chin in thought and he nodded when he reached a conclusion.
"Get James' son. James told the boy everything. He'll know." Amata's eyes widened as she realized they meant Douglas. She looked at Jonas' limp form and imagined her boyfriend in the place of Jonas. A second later, she was sprinting from the room with her father's yelled protests behind her.
Douglas was dancing the Irish clog dance while Amata laughed in the corner when she suddenly yelled: "Get up!" The dream grew dark and he was met with an irritable alarm noise. He slowly pried open one eye and looked sleepily at Amata as she stood over him. He turned his back to her and groggily said:
"Leave me alone. I'm trying to sleep." He had just got comfortable once more when he felt her grab the back of his vault suit and pull him from the bed. He landed on the metal floor with a yelp and looked up at her, the shock having woken him up fully.
"Come on, you have to wake up!" She pleaded with him.
"How weird, I was just dreaming about you torturing me." He joked as he rubbed his eyes.
"Now's not the time to be a smart-mouth! This is serious!" Amata practically yelled as her face grew more panicked. "My father's men are looking for you! They've already killed Jonas, and you've got to get out of here!"
"….What?" Douglas felt his mind swarm with multitude of questions. "Jonas is…..dead? What the hell's going on?"
"It's your dad, he's left the vault!"
"What do you mean? What's going on?" Douglas demanded to know as he jumped to his feet.
"My father thinks Jonas helped your dad escape, so he had his men...My god, they killed him... they just beat him and beat him and wouldn't stop... Mack was out of control. He just didn't stop. And my father….my father just let him." Amata's tears fell down her face as she was finally forced to confront what she had witnessed. Douglas immediate action was to comfort her with a hug and asking her:
"Oh my god….Are you okay?" After a few seconds of this, she finally pulled away and nodded as she wiped her tears away.
"Don't' worry about me. I'm just…..I'm sorry you had to find out like this. I know that Jonas was your friend." He couldn't but nod as he silently mourned Jonas' loss. A thousand thoughts swarmed through his mind as he tried to make sense of what Amata was telling him. Jonas was dead. Dad was gone. What….what is happening? Why did he leave? How did he leave? A thousand more what, why and how's flew threw his mind before Amata snapped him back to reality.
"We have to go now. My father's men will be here any second." She told him. He nodded and reached under his bed where he kept an old duffel bag he found in the closed off sections of the vault. It was the same color of their jumpsuits with a large 101 on the bottom and was large enough to hold his BB gun when he didn't want his dad to know he was sneaking it out. He quickly walked over to the desk where he kept all his memorability and began to shovel it in.
"Look, I know it's none of my business but your dad didn't tell you anything?" The Overseer's daughter asked as he shoveled his baseball glove and bat into the bag.
"No. I had no idea what he was planning." Douglas said as he moved over to his drawers. He opened it and began to stuff all his clean vault suits into the bag. Would the vault suits help him on the outside? Would they turn into someone else's clothes the moment he stepped outside the vault.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sure he had his reasons. Maybe Jonas was supposed to explain everything to you?" She offered in a small gesture of comfort. "But it doesn't matter. I can help you escape. I have my own plan." Despite the situation, Douglas couldn't help but crack a smile and say teasingly:
"Not another one of your plans, Amata." Douglas joked as he threw his last Vault suit into the duffel bag. How he found the humor to joke in a situation so serious was beyond even him, but it did make him feel better. The last thing he pulled from the drawer was his pre-war cap, tucking it firmly on his head. Amata ignored his comment and walked over to wait in the door frame.
"Listen. There's a secret tunnel that leads directly from my father's office to the exit. You'll have to hack the computer. Use these to get into his office. It's how I always get in." She handed him some of the bobby pins she had used to put up her hair. Her hair sloped down a little but still held it composure with the remaining three bobby pins left in her hair. Grabbing his baseball bat and throwing his duffel bag over his shoulder, he gave one last smile to the Overseer's daughter.
"Sounds like a good plan. Let's get out of here." As they left the single bedroom apartment, Douglas stopped and grabbed the first aid kit from the wall. If he was really going into the wastes after his father, he doubted he would get through the entire wastes unscathed. His father had always kept the first aid kit fully stocked due to Douglas' nature of constantly fighting with the Tunnel Snakes. Thankfully it was full of stimpacks. Stimpacks were always a medical miracle when he thought about, the medicine able to accelerate the healing of whoever took to minutes instead of days. When he hurried out, he found Amata hugging the wall near the exit. She put a hand to her lips and beckoned him over.
"Officer Kendall is coming." She warned. Douglas peeked out and saw the officer advancing towards his apartment, his police baton out and a determined look on his face. Thankfully as he passed the intersection, a large group of radroaches suddenly swarmed him. Douglas wondered if the alarms had woken up all the radroaches from the abandoned sections of the vault or it was yelling. His dad always told him the roaches looked for sound when they hunted.
"Criminey! More roaches!" He called as he batted the first one out the air with a well- placed swing. A plan hit Amata as the roaches forced Officer Kendall to back away from the room.
"Okay. I'll try to meet you at the exit. Watch out for the other security." She told him. Then, before Douglas could protest any rash actions that she was clearly planning on doing, she sprinted out and began to taunt the security officer as he battled the three remained roaches. Kendall stomped one of the roaches and bashed the torso of another. Then, he kicked the last roach against the wall and trained his sights on Amata. She saw the glare he gave her and sprinted away, causing the security officer to chase after her. Douglas cursed Amata for her recklessness and praised her for her quick thinking at the same time. Then with a final worried thought in her direction, he ran forward and turned in the opposite direction of where his girlfriend had led Officer Kendall.
He smashed into Butch, sending both of the teenage boys to the ground. I don't have time to deal with this. He quickly stood up and readied his bat in an attempt to scare Butch away. However, instead of Butch's normal reaction whenever they bumped into each other, he was met with a face full of hope and panic. "You gotta help me! My mom's in there with the radroaches!" He practically begged as he jumped up. It took a few seconds before Douglas realized that Butch wasn't about to throw a few punches and then he couldn't help but let out a dry laugh at the situation.
"Butch Deloria, the mighty leader of Tunnel Snakes, asking me for help? If only you understood what irony meant Butch." Douglas said as he held out a hand to help Butch up. Butch took it and when he was on his feet, his face put on his normal façade and said:
"Yeah, I'm asking you for help. So what?" His face dropped the prideful look and he put a face of shame. "Look, I'm sorry for the way I've always treated you. You know I never meant any of it, right? But it's my mom. You can't leave her in there with the radroaches."
"Why do you need my help anyway? Afraid of a few roaches?" Douglas asked with growing impatience. It was only a matter of time before another officer stumbled across him and this time, Amata wasn't here to create another quick plan. When Butch just bashfully stared at the ground, Douglas sighed with exasperation. "Alright. I'll help. But I'm doing this for your mom, not you."
"Sure, I don't care why. Just get her out of there!" Butch sprinted off after saying that, leaving Douglas to hastily follow him. When he arrived at the Deloria's apartment, he saw that it was torn apart, with various objects thrown about. A screaming came from the bedroom and Douglas quickly ran in, leaving Butch at the door. The roaches were easy to deal with, the only problem was trying to avoid Ellen Deloria with each swing of the bat, the woman frantically rolling about to get the roaches off. When all the roaches were nothing but overly large squashed bugs, Ellen Deloria stood up and immediately began searching for the nearest drink. Butch ran in when he realized all the roaches were dead, his face full of delight and surprise. "We did it! You're the best friend I've ever had, man!" Then he pulled off his jacket and shoved it into his hands. "Hey, I know it isn't much, but I want you to have my Tunnel Snakes jacket. Go ahead, take it." After he forced Douglas to take the leather jacket, he went over to where his mom was raiding the liquor cabinet. As much as he didn't like too, he put on the jacket, realizing that heavy leather would be better that his thin vault suit should he get into a bat-baton fight against a guard. Then he ran out of the apartment and continued on his way.
He passed the cafeteria and stopped when say a limp body lying on the floor. It was Grandma Taylor, as everyone called her, although the only person actually related to her was her husband, Officer Taylor. Anger coursed through him and he charged into the room, eviscerating all the roaches standing over her corpse, making sure that every one of them was ripped apart before he moved along. He wasn't going to let the kindly old lady to be eaten by the vermin. He wished he could move Grandma Taylor from the room and put in a more respectful place but he didn't have any time to spare. He continued from the room, running up the stairs down the hall and to his father's office. Once more, he was met with radroaches. Only this time, they were on fire and attacking the Mister Handy who had destroyed his birthday cake on his tenth birthday. Assisting Andy is wiping out these bugs, was Officer Gomez, the one security guard Douglas ever got along with.
After all the roaches had been turned into a roach steak, Gomez turned to the falsely accused fugitive and his stare hardened. Douglas prepared for a fight, although he honestly wished that it wouldn't come to that. "You're lucky it was me that found you. The others won't be so forgiving. I don't know what you're up to and I don't want to know. Just clear out and I'll pretend I never saw you."
"Thanks, Officer Gomez. I've always liked you." Douglas thanked holding his bat in one hand and sticking out the other. Gomez gave a light smile as he took it.
"It's a real shame it's come to this. I can't believe what they did to Jonas…..Officer Mack was just out of control. But you're a good kid. You didn't do anything to deserve this. Go find your dad, if you can." Gomez told him. As he started to walk away, he stopped and looked back at Douglas. Then he came back and held a 10mm pistol up. "I'm hoping you don't have to use this but The Overseer has told the guards that if anyone tries to leave the vault again, to shoot on sight. Please try your best not to find a need for it. And kid. Good luck." With that, he placed the pistol into the reluctant teen's hand and ran in the opposite direction.
"Gomez!" Douglas called before he got too far. The security officer turned and looked at him. "I'll tell them I took it from you by force." With that, Douglas ran into his dad's office, tucking the pistol into the back of his vault suit. The room had been thrown around in what looked like a fit of rage. The desk chair had been thrown across the room and the computer was on floor, the screen cracked. The teenager immediately began to rifle through the random assortment of papers, looking for any clue on where his dad had gone. When he found nothing, Douglas leaned against the wall near his father's framed quote of Revelations 21:6. He felt on the verge of crying but something shiny caught his sight. He looked behind the frame and pulled it off the wall when he was sure what he saw. It was a safe. A safe that not even Douglas knew about. He grabbed the dial and immediately began try to crack the combination. 2-1-6 wasn't the combination which foiled Douglas' first attempt. He then tried three variations on which his dad's birth year was which also proved not to be it. He hit the wall in anger, knowing this safe possibly contained the answer to where his dead was going. Then he thought of something else. He turned the dial to the numbers 7-13-58, his birthday. The safe gave a click and swung open, revealing a holotape and a bag of….bottle caps. Douglas took them both and shoved them into the duffel bag, promising to listen to the holotape later.
He sprinted from the office with Andy calling "Hello good sir!" from behind as he left. He didn't stop to acknowledge Andy, although he wasn't sure if he would ever see the Mister Handy robot again. He continued into the Atrium, stopping just before he reached the main room. He peaked in to see who was talking in the room, afraid he might have heard two more guards. Thankfully, it was only Tom Holden and his wife, Mary. Tom was trying to get Mary to follow him as he tried to leave the vault. Douglas, always having got along with the Holdens ran into the room and made a beeline straight for the stairs. There was a crack and something hit the ground at Douglas' feet. He looked at the two guards who were shooting him, recognizing Officer Richards and Officer O'Brian as the two intent on killing him. Their eyes were that of a feral animal's and they had no mercy or reasoning in them. Both Douglas and the Holdens ran for cover, in opposite directions. The two officers gave no chase to either, merely remaining at their posts. He let a relieved sigh, unsure what he would have done if the two officers had followed him through the broken door, which was held open only by a metal locker. To make sure that if they changed their minds they couldn't shoot him in the back, he pushed the locker out of the way and allowed to door to close and lock.
Douglas continued on, smashing through the roaches as he went. As he ran onto the second floor and into the systems room, he could hear Allen Mack shouting: "You! This is all your fault. You and your stupid father! He had to leave and screw things up for everyone! Guards! Guards! Over here!" He did his best to ignore the man but the words haunted him. Was he really responsible for the death of Grandma Taylor? He was disturbed by the thought that he didn't notice Security Chief Paul Hannon until his police baton connected with the side of Douglas' head. The force sent Douglas against the wall, slamming him painfully against the cold hard metal and causing a small trail of blood to come from his hair. The Security Chief let out a vicious snarl and raised his baton once more. Without thinking, Douglas pulled the 10mm pistol from where he tucked it and put three rounds into the security Chief's chest. Hannon grunted in surprise and fell back, a pool of blood starting to form under him. A wave of nausea hit him and he felt the urge to puke. But he held it down, knowing that he couldn't afford to sit here any longer. But as he continued, the troublesome thought kept coming to him. Was he a murderer? Hannon would certainly agree with this, were he alive. The thought made him want to puke again.
He couldn't hold his nausea any more, stopping and retching. As he was bent down, he heard: "Be reasonable Amata, Officer Mack may enjoy this but I don't. Just tell us where your friend in so we can talk to him."
""He's my friend and... and I just wanted to help him. I was worried about him. What does he have to do with all of this anyway? He didn't do anything! I swear!" Amata pleaded with her father. Douglas crept towards the door, watching the interrogation through the window. He tucked his pistol into the back of his vault hoping he wouldn't have to use it ever again.
"That's why you need to tell me where he is. So I can talk with him, nothing more." The Overseer promised, lying through his teeth. Sure, that's why Security Chief Hannon was about to bash my skull in he though bitterly as he remembered the Security Chief's dead body. Amata knew he was lying because she looked away in defiance, her arms crossed her rebellion and the muscles in his face bunching up with anticipation.
"One more time Mack." Mack advanced with the police baton raised, a sadistic smile across his lips. He brought the club across her face, causing a yelp of pain from Amata. A fire was lit in Douglas, and before he could stop himself, he was in the room and swinging his baseball back at Mack's head. The Officer was caught by surprise, hitting the floor and sending his baton across the room. The Overseer called for the guards but was met with nothing.
"Amata." The crying girl looked at him with a mixture of surprise and thankfulness. "Go." With that invitation, Amata sprinted from the room and down the hall into her father's room. After Amata was gone, Douglas walked over to the Overseer with a glare on his face. "I'd once thought that there was lines that even you wouldn't cross. I guess I was wrong."
"I hope you're here to turn yourself in, young man. You're already in enough trouble as it is. Don't make things worse for yourself. Or Amata." The Overseer said, the last part being a clear threat to his own daughter's safety. Douglas realized he could try and end this in the most peaceful way possible. He didn't noticed that Mack had retrieved his baton and was waiting for the right moment.
"Fine. Have it your way." Douglas said and handed the man his baseball bat. The moment the Overseer took it, he shouted:
"NOW Mack!" The officer jumped to his feet and ran forward with the baton above his head while the Overseer used his own bat against him. There was a crack and a thud in the events that followed. Mack fell to the floor with a gunshot wound in his neck and Douglas was left with an arm at an awkward angle as he held the gun Gomez had given him to the Overseer's head. The pain was immense where the Overseer had hit him, making his vision blurry and his mind befuddled with every pang of pain, but he refused to let the old man see that. He ripped the bat from the man's grasp with his good arm and gave Alphonse the meanest glare he could summon. Something that was not hard considering the events of his escape.
"I want the password to your terminal." He growled.
"Oh is that all?" He asked in a condescending tone but Douglas could see the fear in his eyes. He knew he would have to go farther.
"You think that I want do it? I killed Paul Hannon and I just killed Steve Mack. Do you truly believe that I wouldn't blow you away right now for your password to the terminal?" He threatened, pressing the warm barrel of the gun against his head. He let out an uneasy gulp and his eyes darted around for an escape. When he found none, he sighed and muttered the name of his only child. Douglas nodded and aimed the gun the down towards the Overseer's knee. "Time for you to retire." He told him before pulling the trigger. The recoil of the gun caused his arm to jerk with white hot pain and his ears rang with the Overseer's scream of pain. Douglas walked out of the room and swung his bat at the door controls, smashing the locking mechanism. With that, he walked into the Overseer's room and tried to find Amata.