I wanted to help the woman, but I couldn't do it alone. I needed James' help, not only that, but a weapon as well. "We should look around the apartment building for something we could use as a weapon". James nodded and headed over to the rooftop's door and opened it and stuck his head in. "It's clear, come on."

I headed over to him and swung the door open again and followed down the stairs after James. We both stopped on the third floor, the one right below the roof. We started by going into the room right across from the stairwell leading to the roof. Before we went in that the room number was 304, and I guess that signified that it was the forth room on the third floor because I found it preposterous that this apartment building would have 300 rooms. We entered the room and I was greeted by complete darkness.

After a minute or two my eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I could now make out something in the corner. I walked closer to it; it was a large mass with a blocky shape to it. I could see corners of something poking the in various places around the figure. I reached my hand out and touched it. It was a cloth feeling, suddenly it made sense to me and I grabbed the cloth and started to bunch it up by grabbing it with one hand and passing it to the other and repeating this procedure until I had a large mass of cloth pressing against my chest.

It was at this time that James walked over to me and asked "What'd you find?" I could see three boxes, two on the bottom and one in the middle of the two. "Let's find out" I said as I blew the gritty excess air out of my mouth. The box on the very top was the first one I opened. Inside of it was a folded piece of paper. I picked it up and unfolded it and walked into the hallway lit by the light from the rooftops door. The letter said:
Welcome on behalf of Vault-Tec to come to Vault 103. This vault will protect you from the apocalypse we all know is coming, but don't worry, because when that time comes, you'll be in the safest place you can be!

The paper trailed off into unintelligible words about living in a vault. James instantly blurted out "Hey weren't we in a vault?" I pondered the question for a second and thought of the consequences of my answer, "No" I said. James dropped the subject after seeing that it could only go so far, and then continued to search the room for more supplies. James and I walked back into the room where the three boxes were. I removed the box that was on the top of the stack and put it on the dusty ground and turned to the next box.

There was writing on the lid of the next box but was obscured by a veil of thick dust. I wiped the dust off with my hand, revealing the underlying words. The top of the box said the words Vault-Tec in yellow letters and had a boy that had a suit similar to the ones James and I had on." I thought you said we weren't from a vault Rob" James said with concern. "We aren't, it's just a coincidence that he is wearing the same colors as us" I said in an irritated voice showing that I didn't want to talk about our now ruined home.

He was drawn in a cartoonish manner and had blonde messy hair. His eyes were black buttons on his face. His hand was raised in a 'thumbs up' gesture and he was smiling as if he had just won first place in a race. I took the boxes top off and dropped the lid to the floor with a metallic crash. My face lit up when I saw the contents of the box. There was a pile of wrist mounted computers known as "Pip-Boys". I knew the things were distributed to most vaults before the war, but in vault 100, there had been a shortage of Pip-Boys given to the vault, and only the people deemed important were given one.

I reached into the box and picked up one of the Pip-Boys that didn't have a crack on the screen and wiped the dust off of it. I turned it over and found the clamp that held the wrist strap together and put it over my arm, just above my hand. Immediately after I placed it on my arm, the wrist clamp jerked close, seconds after I was greeted by a screen on the Pip-Boy that said: "The Pip-Boy 3000, the future of America" in bold green letters with a black background. The screen faded out and was replaced by a screen the said "location" with a text box underneath it and underneath that was an option that said "use GPS to find location". Since I didn't know exactly where we were I chose the "use GPS to find location" option. A loading screen flashed on my Pip-Boy that said "finding location, please wait". In a minute or two, a screen appeared that said "Congratulations! You have successfully survived the initial blast, and are now a citizen of the Virginia/D.C. area; the map for this area will now appear on your Vault-Tec standard issued Pip-Boy 3000".

After reading the text, a map of Virginia flew across the screen, and zipped to a place called "Open Arms Plaza" I guessed this was that slaver camp down the street from us. About a centimeter away from Open Arms was an arrow facing away from the location on the map. I started to turn towards the slaver building while looking at my Pip-Boys map. The arrow on the map was spinning at the same rate I was. I decided it was time to stop and give James his Pip-Boy too. I reached into the box and grabbed the one that was in best condition and handed it carefully to James. The same events that happened to me happened to him as well, the clamping of the wrist strap, location setting, and the map.

We screwed around with our Pip-Boys for 15 more minutes and I finally turned to James and said "We should get out of here." we briefly looked around the room and altogether we found a rusty lead pipe." Take this, you were a lot better at baseball back home than me." I told James and he agreed with a nod of agreement.

I suddenly noticed the window that was boarded up on the inside with fairly new looking boards. I went over to them and started to pull at one of the boards. The board suddenly ripped off with a loud sound of wood creaking and glass breaking. I fell backwards and fell into a couple of boxes that, in turn crashed to the ground like a cymbal in a parade.

I began to hear shouting from down the street and knew that they had heard me, they knew we were here. I quickly got up and ran out into the hall with James following close behind me. In my hand was the nail board I had just gotten, and James was wielding the lead pipe he found. We ran down to the first floor and to the back door of the apartment building. I ran to the door and started to throw myself into it and at first it wouldn't budge, but then it started to crack open, exposing the light outside. I continued to bash the door with my shoulder until it flew open and I was in a dark alleyway with sheets hanging from multiple fire escape ladders. The ground was littered with several rocks about the size of fifty cent pieces. James was panting from just running down the stairs of the apartment. He had the lead pipe in his hand at the ready. I heard one of the slavers shout "LET'S CHECK AROUND BACK!" I took my position at the corner of the alleyway and held my board in a baseball bat manner and waited to strike. The first slaver began to walk around the corner. I grabbed one of the many rocks that was on the ground and threw it across the street. I saw the slaver walk across the street to the rock. I sprinted towards him with my board ready. I got to where he was just as he was turning around and swung the board as hard as I could towards his hand, knocking his pistol out of his hand into the ground causing it to fire off a round into the brick wall behind me. I raised the board again and struck him in the neck. Blood began to pour out of the opening I had made and the slaver fell to the ground while gargling on his own blood. I took his pistol from the street and began to look in the satchel he had on. Inside was three 10mm pistol clips. I took the entire satchel off of him and put it over my shoulder then put the slavers pistol back in the satchel with the rest of the ammo. I ran to the corner that the slaver had originally come from. I took a peek around the corner. There were three slavers in front of the apartment building. About this time James had met up with me and I told him of the situation we were in. We decided that now was the time to use the pistol we had found. I took the slavers pistol out and showed it to James. I walked back around to the alley and picked up another rock and jogged back to James. I threw the rock as soon as I reached him, pulled out the pistol, and aimed down its sights. The slaver walked into my field of view and I lined my sights up with his head and pulled the trigger. The bullet flew out of the barrel of my gun and into the slavers head, splattering grey matter all over the wall in front of him. I took a step around the corner and started to fire on the other slavers. The two slavers were dispatched in less than 5 seconds, both from shots to the head. I turned to James and said "we should head to the slavers main base" he nodded and we started up the street towards the building. We got to the blue double doors without being noticed. I stopped after realizing what I had done, I had just taken another persons life, regardless if he deserved it, he was still human.

I hid the expression of fear on my face from James and continued into the building James slowly opened the doors and I pointed my gun into the darkness of the building. I saw a single guard turned away from the door with his back towards us. I put the pistol back in the satchel and started to crouch walk towards him. I pulled my nail board out and beat him over the head with it repeatedly. We continued to take out the remaining of the guards like this until we arrived at the slaves holding cells. There were small rooms with bars covering the doors and windows. Immediately after we entered the holding cells the slaves started begging for their freedom. "Stay quite while we find the keys" James said. It was about this time that the man with the khakis and the blue sweater walked in on the opposite side of the room."Well, well, well" he said "not only have you entered my home and killed all my friends, but you also plan to free my slaves, don't you?" I stared back at him "your friends were monsters and they had to be put down" I started, thoughts of me murdering the people outside filled my head, I'm no better than he is, "and I think you're outnumbered two to one, so you aren't in any position to be calling shots. So not only are we going to free these people, but you aren't going to do anything to stop us.". He stared down the corridor at James and I "And if I do try to stop you?" he asked in an egotistical fashion to which I replied "I'll personally kill you myself" he started to say something but James cut him off and asked "where are the keys to these cells?". He started to walk out of the room. He had been gone for about 30 seconds when at once the cells opened. The slaves ran out of the room and of the building. The man came back and said "okay the slaves are free. What more do you want? You're essentially killing them yourself by setting them free, they've no idea what to do out there, or the means to do anything if they did, but I guess that's on your conscience now". He headed out the door and walked into the sunset before James or I could ask him anymore about the situation. James and I watched him until we couldn't see him anymore. I suddenly remembered the woman from before and began to search the cells for her. I couldn't find her and assumed she'd been killed. I looked to James and we headed out. Back into the wasteland again.