Semper Eadem

Arthur stood still for a few moments more, still holding onto Amata. The sound had returned to his ears and his mind had got a grip on what was happening but there was so much he didn't know; few minutes before he was asleep in his bed, dreaming a forgotten dream when three armed guards arrived at his front door to 'escort' him to the overseer for further questioning. He had tried resolving the situation as best he could but couldn't diffuse the anger that Officer Mack held against him, for no apparent reason, it would seem. Now he was covered in blood, the fighting between him and Mack had left him on the receiving end of two horrific punches, both to his supraorbital ridges, but nothing more than pain and swelling thankfully. The blood however consisted mainly of the Type B positive that had once belonged to the former second in command of vault security. The blood was drying and clotting on his face and hair and there was a large amount of blood that had spilt onto his suit from the hole Amata gifted to Officer Mack.
She however was largely dry, save for her eyes. She had buried her face into Arthurs shoulder and held him tightly for a minute. Arthur did what he could to soothe the distraught Amata, but he knew it was of little condolence. The room was a state; Mack had made a show of his force by throwing Arthur's dresser half way across the room which shattered when it contacted the floor. Blood was still flowing, albeit to a much lesser degree, from the hole in Mack's head which pooled like a scarlet sea around his body and the boots of Arthur and Amata. Arthur was still confused about the situation, not knowing what was going on other than his father was involved in some situation that meant that he himself was responsible. He was obliged to stand and hug Amata, despite the danger of inaction.

"Amata, what is going on? Why was he here? Why did you shoot him?" He asked seriously, but trying to avoid upsetting her.

"You've got to get out of here!" she said hysterically, grabbing at her hair, clearly in deep distress. "Your fathers left the vault and my father men are looking for you!"

"What do you mean my father has left the vault? No one ever leaves" Arthur questioned, frowning at the information.

"He's left the vault! I don't know how but he's gone and my father… he's kind of gone crazy". Amata spoke hurriedly, showing all manner of wanting to leave rather than explain to Arthur what was going on. Arthur's heart sank at the news, his own father had abandoned him, and now he was going to be punished by an out of control overseer for his actions.

"Surely to god your father would have prevented this? How could my father have left… how could he?" He said angrily

Amata looked to the ground, sensing Arthur's rage, she didn't know how to react, this situation had never happened before. She knew Arthur was angry rather for want of a grasp on the situations. He never was one to be handled about, instead he often established himself as a leader, rather than leave it to someone else's incompetence.

"I don't know. But he's gone and Jonas is dead and now they're looking for you" She said sadly. Arthur took a step back and gave a denying look towards Amata.

"Jonas… dead?"

Amata nodded solemnly.

Arthur felt his body heat up as the anger within him brewed. His eyes were wide and face pained with lips thinned. The sudden lust for revenge swirled in his head, a thousand thoughts of punishment, from the subtle to the obscene bombarded the chorus in his head, each screaming retribution, going against his moral fibre, but being met with approval in the torrent of anguish.

"My father's men think Jonas helped your dad escape, they caught him and brought him to my father's office," she looked down to the former Officer Mack and sniffled a little "he… he killed Jonas" she choked.

The room was silent as Arthur thought through the situation, while Amata wiped her eyes and composed herself. Inside Arthur was exploding with rage, but he kept it in the crucible of himself as the world of Vault 101 compressed into his mind. He looked at Amata's fingers and saw the blood staining her hands.

"Are you alright?" he said, losing the angry tone in his voice.

Amata looked down to her fingers, seeing all the six cuts on her fingers.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just sorry you had to find out like this. I know Jonas was your friend" she sniffled again. She looked up from her hands and right into Arthur's eyes.
"But we've got to go now. My father's men will be back any minute." She said hastily.

Arthur thought over his options for a minute; there weren't really any options other than escaping and going after his father, the dead body put paid to any chance of a peaceful resolution, even though Amata had killed him, Arthur undoubtedly would be held accountable.

"There's no alternative; I have to leave the vault. I know I am not responsible for this, but nonetheless I will be punished as such, that is to say, I doubt your father will care very much to differentiate between my father and myself." He said grimly.

Amata knew there was no other way even though she wished there was.

"I know. You have to go after your father. You'll have to escape from the vault"

Arthur looked through Amata, thinking about how he would go about it. His options were limited. He would need food, water, clothes, weapons, medical supplies. He needed more than the vault probably had. Amata stood in front of him, knowing that he was thinking deeply about something. His stare broke and took Amata by surprise slightly.

"Can you help me?" he asked. "I will need that pistol, some water and food" he stated. Amata took the bag off her back and handed it to Arthur.

"There's some ammo for the pistol in there, a few magazine thingies as well. We can get water from the tap and food from the supply room" she suggested.

Arthur nodded taking the bag in his hands and walking over to his broken dresser, pulling out a spare vault suit and folding it tightly into his bag. Amata went into the kitchen and hurriedly started bottling water into small plastic, jar like bottles. Arthur walked out with his baseball bat. Amata looked at the bat, knowing he was going to use it instead of the pistol, which Arthur noticed her looking to.

"I would rather beat someone unconscious than shoot them. I have no intention of doing the devils work." he said in a matter of fact tone.

It was a poor choice of words as Amata remembered the dead Officer Mack sprawled across Arthur's bedroom floor. Arthur took note of the suddenly saddened face of Amata and tried to gain lost ground

"Amata" he started softly "what you did you needed to do. What is done is done and it saved me, so yet again I am indebted to you. His death is tragic, certainly, but he is not a man to whom we can hold sympathy for. You know he is… was… a brutal man and without you I would be dead by now. It's a grave affair and that requires grave decisions" he orated as he gripped her shoulders softly.

Amata nodded at him, her eyes showing him how bad she really felt. The once beautiful hazel eyes had become a morass of reddened sclera, smudged makeup and heavy tears.

Arthur tried to force the conversation somewhere else other than the upsetting and disturbing circumstances that they found themselves in.

"We need food, come with me, if you please" he said as he walked out of his room with Amata following closely. He turned left out of his room and stood at the supply room door.

"Is there a way into this? It would be invaluable if we could get access to the food." He said looking at the door.

"There's a way" Amata said as she crouched by the console. Her hands buried into her hair searching for a hair pin carefully, endeavouring to avoid the slit fingers that had by now crudely clotted closed. She pulled the bobby pin out and bent it in the middle and then forced it into the lock in the console.
The door made a hissing sound as it slid open. Inside the room there were shelves upon shelved of food, stacked ten deep by at least ten metres long. Amata stood up, pressing the pin into Arthur hand.

"That's how I get in to my father office" she said as she pushed his hand closed.

Arthur walked into the room and began placing the boxes into the bag. The bag itself wasn't much bigger than two foot by one in a rectangle shaped leather wasn't a great amount of space but he managed to force several of the boxes in along with the water. In all he had about four days food with him.

"That's not a lot I can take with me. I will be short of food, no doubt. Do you think there will be settlements on the outside?" Arthur Questioned, showing an air of apprehensiveness as the reality of the precariousness of his situation hit him.

"I… I don't know. It's been a long time since the bombs fell. Maybe some other vaults opened up or some other survivors were involved. I don't know. I think so."

Arthur said nothing as he walked from the room and looked at his Pipboy, creating an itinerary of his backpack.

"Christ, I nearly forgot, there is a first aid kit in my room, on the wall. Would you mind getting it?" he asked.

Amata nodded as she ran into the room. The kit was on the wall in a small box which was marked by a faded green cross and when she opened it the contents of the box spilled onto the floor. The box had been filled with several years' worth of medical equipment, far greater than any first aid kit would require. The box was filled with Stimpacks, around ten in total with dozens of bandages and a few boxes of plasters with antiseptic wipes. There was even two syringes of MedX, something which was prohibited for private ownership, along with that there were numerous metal instruments including scalpels and an array of tweezers. She knelt down and gathered the supplies from the floor and into her arms and walked out into the room, suspiciously eying Arthur.

"Why do you have so many medical supplies? You could treat half the vault with this stuff"

Arthur who had been in his world of compacted thought looked up and at the supplies.

"Well you see I always endeavour never to be cut short. For you see life is like guessing what is in the other room and more times than not it is butch with a baseball and intention to damage some part of my anatomy, and so I must always be prepare, on a more…. Macro scale, if you will. And I intend to be prepared for any such encounter. One can never prepare too much." He stated as he opened the front pocket of his bag and carefully placed each item in.

"There's a bottle of Vodka under the sink. Would you mind?"

Amata was shocked by this possession; Arthur had always made a point of never drinking alcohol. Why would he have a whole bottle of Vodka? She stood there giving him a disapproving look. She herself refused to drink, after witnessing the rapid decline of Butch's Mother to the abhorrent vices of alcohol.

Arthur noticed the look and felt compelled to argue his side.

"For disinfectant, the alcohol can be used to kill of microbes and such, to an extent. Nothing is fool proof and to take chances is to act unnecessarily in such circumstances" he said defensively.

Amata reach into the cupboard under the sink and pulled out the unopened bottle, looking at the date of distillation.

"How long have you had this?"

"Approximately two years"

"And you've kept it all this time… for an Emergency? You've never been tempted to drink it?"

"Temptation is for the weak. Resolve to be indifferent to such matters and you will be as resolute in your actions as successful" Arthur replied. "Now if we are quite done interrogating me Inquisitor, we have more pressing matters to attend to" he said, motioning to the door.

They both walked to the door and looked down the corridor to which would ultimately lead their two lives to break apart.

As they left the room Arthur opened his bag back up and took Amata's hands carefully in his. He doused them in the vodka, forcing Amata to squint at the pain. He then placed a plaster around each of her fingers, taking extreme care not to hurt her. His movements were soft and affectionate. He paused for a moment, staring into the abyss.

"You have to go without me." He said silently.
"If they see you with me you'll be incriminated along with me. Make your way to the top and try and stall your father, hopefully the distraction will be sufficient to let me leave…" he said forlornly. "This might be the last time I see you"

Amata looked to him as he slowly lifted his head. She didn't move and her breathing became shallow, almost ceasing. She was about to lose the one thing in the vault which she cared about most. Time slowed as the two stood there silently, staring at each other with their expressions so concisely showing their pain, no words were needed to be said, for looks convey more than words.

"I will try to meet you upstairs" she said with tears forming in her eyes once more. Arthur looked to her with a grievous look on his face.

"As long as you are safe that is all that matters" he said softly. Amata pulled him into a hug, which he sorrowfully returned; holding her in his arms as such buried her face into his neck and let out a sob.

"I hope you do not think ill of me for my apparent lack of affection" Arthur finally admitted. "For I hold you most dear and these circumstances we find ourselves thrust into will do nothing to lessen my opinion of you. When all is said and done I will return to you, depend upon it. A life out there is none at all without you."

Amata pulled herself from the embrace and kissed Arthur on the lips.

"I will wait for you by the door. I'll try and stall my father. Just please be quick and avoid anyone, I don't want my father catching you"

"I will be. Now, it's a good idea for you to set off before me. Go to your father and do whatever is necessary, just be careful." He paused for a moment. "I love you" he said smiling wearily at her.

"I love you too" Amata said as she wiped away her tears and set off down the corridor, making her way to Vaults jail in an attempt to find her father before he started a search for Officer Mack.

Arthur watched her as she ran off and even when he had turned the corner he stood there, wanting everything to be different. He resultantly turned around and picked up his bat from the floor. He grasped it in two hands and swung it in a test trial.
He noticed the body of Officer Mack on the floor, face down in his own blood. Arthur walked over to the corpse and rolled it over into the supine position and cleared the blood from his face with a bed sheet. The man's eyes were still wide open, frozen in a look of shock. Arthur knelt down and placed his fingers over his eyelids and with a slow movement downwards he closed them; a mark of respect for a man who had been intent on killing him not 10 minutes before.

He rose from kneeling and grasped his bag on the floor as he walked to the door. There were countless things in his room he wished he could take, such as the picture of him and his father on his tenth birthday, a sentimental object that had no use other than a connection with the past, but Arthur knew the second he stood through that door, all his life up to this point had been irrelevant. No longer would he be in a place where words could win confrontation and personal advances were made through the exchange between others. He knew the only exchange he could expect, if any, was gunfire. The bat was useless outside and the pistol was impractical inside, the gunfire would only serve to expose his position to the guards. Nonetheless he had to make do with what he had. He walked from the room, bat in hand, pausing for a moment for a solemn mental farewell.
He breathed silently, finding himself at a loss, he forced himself but no limb would move, he couldn't just walk away, not like this. Sentiment, he found, was a powerful force. So many memories he had in this room. His first kiss. His admission to Amata. Three years of his life he had lived and slept there. Every day after work he would study on a now overturned desk. He would sit on his bed and message Amata despite The Overseer explicitly banning such activity. Leaving everything he knew behind was so much more intense than words can describe. The feeling of belonging, of ownership, the responsibility of living by himself, and he was just going to walk away from it. He had to.

He wrenched his mind of the negative and onto the objective. The vault was going to kill him if he didn't act, and inaction was something Arthur was a stranger to.

"Do the business of the day in the day" he thought as he began walking away from his room.

Arthur had been keeping his movements quiet as he ran from corridor to corridor, attempting to make his way to the Atrium. He had no encountered any Officers as of yet, though he was convinced he would when the alarm was sounded not twenty seconds after he walked from his room. The whole vault now must have known about the escape. A population of around one hundred and fifty were now all potential threats to Arthur, and he took pains to avoid them.
He ran in no particular direction, trying to avoid the more populated areas of the vault.
He was roughly half way there when from around the corner he heard the sound of metal bashing against concrete and the sounds of something hard being beaten through. Arthur leant around the corner carefully, exposing just his cheek and eye. He saw an officer standing, fighting off seven rad roaches. The mutant insects grabbed at the Officers legs, tearing the cloth away. The Officer would bat them away but only to have a mandible attack him from round the side. The Officer was visibly frustrated, but, oddly, not panicked by the rabid attack he was fending off.

Arthur didn't know what to do, his most recent encounter with an officer had left him nearly dead and approaching another was not the foremost idea Arthur had. The officer swung round at a Radroach and knocked its head flying in the direction of Arthur. Arthur followed the insect's remains with his head as it rolled past his corner. Incidentally the officer had done that also and as Arthur looked back to the raging battle he saw the Officer stare straight back at him, disregarding the roaches.

"You! You little shit!" the Officer growled as he swathed his way through the roaches with a renewed fury, intent on striking at Arthur.

Arthur backed away from the corner, holding the bat length ways to stop any swings. The ravenous man closed the gap within seconds, a speed which was frightening to witness. The Officer swung savagely at the final radroach and sent its carcass flying across the floor in a display of uncontrolled anger. Arthur by now had identified the officer as Officer Kendall, an aggressive man by nature with a short tempered disposition; Arthur knew there was little chance at negotiation. Despite his lack of ability with a baseball bat, he would have to fight the man.

The Officer walked menacingly towards Arthur, swaying his baton lightly by his leg, adding to the intimidation. There was a brief roar of exertion as Kendal raised his arm above his head and swung at Arthur with brutal ferocity. Arthur instinctively raised his bat to protect himself, but it was too little avail as the blow glanced off the wood and slid down the length of the bat, striking Arthur in the chin, forcing him to stumble several feet backwards to escape from the inevitable attack Kendal was charging up.

Arthur rubbed his chin with his shoulder as Kendal stood a mere two metres away, grinning madly at his success. Arthur raised his bat again; making sure it wasn't angled in such a way that a ricochet swing wouldn't hit him again.

Another roar came from the officer as he ran charged forwards swinging madly at Arthur. The officer's over-zealous use of energy allowed Arthur a slight advantage. Using the officer's momentum against him, Arthur struck at his knees, forcing the officer onto the floor. Kendall attempted to stand again, as he energetically lifted himself onto all fours but Arthur sensing this was his only good opportunity drove home with the bat between the unguarded neck and shoulder plates.
He sung again and again at the opening, each time he felt the bat slide a little off one of the vertebrae. He continued pounding this area for a few moments more, making absolutely sure there was no movement before allowing himself to stop caving the poor man's neck in. If he wasn't dead then he wouldn't be walking ever again.

Abhorred by the sight of the mangled mess of the man's neck, Arthur recoiled at the grim sight. The Officer's neck was a mangled mess of shattered bone, visibly protruding through broken and lacerated skin. Arthur felt uneasy at the look of the man. He had actually killed someone in cold blood. He tried to internally reason with himself, attempting to condone his actions by justifying that his actions were to preserve his life, and that meant the death of him. But any attempt at justification did little to dampen the sickening feeling that felt like it was dragging his soul away. He knew that the officer's death was unnecessary, but what could he have done? The man wouldn't have stopped to have a philosophical chat with Arthur. However he felt ashamed of himself, as if his actions had corrupted all that he had ever held dear. There was no moral integrity in killing, he found. Arthur's breathing became laboured and erratic as he had somewhat a mental lapse. Falling into a brief moment of utter terror and despair far greater than anything he had ever experienced. He had seen dead bodies before in his line of work and was always indifferent to them, even officer Mack's sudden and gruesome demise did little to affect him, but when death was dealt by his hand, there were no words comparable.

Arthur was suddenly confronted with a sickening decision, leave the probably dead Officer to be devoured by the radroaches, allowing Arthur a quicker, hassle free escape or drag the corpse into a room, waste time for honour and have a greater chance of the security team finding him. He decided with the latter rather than the former and grabbed the officer's armour and dragged the body down the hallway. The officer's head rolled from side to side in a sickening, unnatural way as Arthur dragged him along and with each corner turned, the head would seem to almost fall from the neck.

Suddenly, there was a high pitched scream that resonated throughout the corridors. Accompanying the scream came a tearful figure running down the hallway, clad in signature leather jacket. As the figure approached Arthur could see the features of Butch, with a distraught, emotion afflicted face. Butch was running headlong on to Arthur.

Slightly curious to what butch was running from, or to but worried that the butch had harmful intentions, as the previous two out of three people he had met had, Arthur readied his bat as a precaution. He ran right up to Arthur and grabbed his shoulders in a desperate bid to gain Arthur's help. Arthur gave Butch a cautious look as Butch clung to his suit, as he gripped the bat, resisting the urge to swing at the bully.

"You gotta help me! My mom's trapped in there with the rad roaches!"

"Your mums trapped where?" Arthur asked hesitantly, still brandishing the bat.

"In my room! C'mon we have to help her!"

"Alright, lead the way" Arthur said carefully pushing the body of Kendall to the corner of the corridor in a futile bid to prevent the body from being discovered.

Fortunately the room was only a corridor away and they quickly made it to the front door. Arthur stood waiting for Butch to go first; however Butch just looked at Arthur petrified. Arthur stood there listening to the screams of Butch's mother. Frustrated by Butch's inaction and to coax into movement, Arthur motioned to the door with his head with his eyes wide open and mouth slightly agape out of sheer shock Butch wasn't leading the charge to his own mothers rescue.

"I see you aren't one to be disposed to heroics then" Arthur scorned.

"Its dark in there man! You'll have to go in there on your own" Butch said nervously, edging away from the door.

"By god, you're a coward. Scum is too pleasant a compliant for you" Arthur disparaged as he moved into the open doorway.

In the room adjoining Arthur could hear the screams of Ellen, Butch's mother. Furniture and ornaments were scattered all over the room, showing the desperate struggle Ellen had made as she scrambled to the relative safety of the bedroom. Arthur stood on photo frames accidently as he cautiously walked to the door of the opposite room, keeping a wary eye out for any straggling radroaches. He approached the console and flipped the switch to slide the door open.
The door groaned and opened agonisingly slowly, clearly from ill maintenance and neglect. Around waist height Arthur bent over and slid under the door only to be met with the most overdramatic scene of carnage he had ever met.

On a table stood the mother of the bully who had tormented him his whole life. Around her were three small radroaches nipping her feet. Arthur was amazed about how much fuss this brave trio of insects had made.

With his BB gun, he and Amata used to go hunting radroaches twice there size when he was a mere eleven years old. Arthur duly swung the bat at each of the radroaches and smashed there exoskeletons apart. Ellen who had continued here high pitched scream throughout fell into Arthur's arms in a most dramatic fashion as Butch finally found the courage to enter his home.

"Butchy! You saved me!" Ellen cried as she rose from Arthur's arms and pushed him away. Arthur was shocked, watching the episode in amazement. Butch embraced his mother in an impassioned hug.

"Much ado about nothing" Arthur muttered vehemently.

Butch ran over to Arthur with a beaming expression on his face

"We did it! You're the best friend I've ever had!"

"Oh, it was nothing" Arthur said sarcastically but truthfully.

"Here, take this. It's not much but it means a whole bunch" Butch said as he removed his leather jacket and passed it to Arthur. Arthur reluctantly accepted the gift.

"Thank you, I'll put it to good use, I'm sure." He said with his mind drifting.

"I will accept your gift in just a moment, if you could just bear with me for one minute" Arthur said as he handed back the jacket and walked from the room in a disenchanted fashion. Butch turned from his mother and gave her a smile of relief. She, however, pulled out a bottle of Vodka from the counter, one of the few things that was not smashed in the flurry of panic not five minutes before. Disregarded the shot glasses on the floor, she instead plugged her lips around the bottle and chugged away thirstily.
Butch looked at his mother disapprovingly as she drained half of the burning liquid in one take, but he daren't say anything, he had been on the receiving end of her alcohol induced rage before.

She sighed with heavy relief as the room temperature alcohol hit her stomach and sat heavily, waiting to be absorbed into her blood stream, then she could finally be calm. Butch witnessed her eyes widen as she looked through the doorway from where she was sat on the sofa. She threw the bottle through the door as she screamed yet another pained howl. Butch was unaware of what she was screaming at until Arthurs back passed the threshold of the room, hunching over, straining as he dragged something into the room. Butch himself let out a loud, high pitch scream as he clutched at a pillow at the sight of Officer Kendall's corpse being dragged into the room with the sickening head rolling announcing that the officer was dead.

Arthur placed the body onto a rug in the middle of the room, where a turned over table used to be situated. He lifted himself up and calmly walked over to butch who had jammed himself into the corner of the room, clutching his protective pillow.

Arthur noted that he was visibly shaking, as if the room were minus fifty degrees. He looked around the room for the jacket that was his pathetic prize for a pathetic state of affairs. He spotted the jacket on the floor, just in front of Butch and he knelt down and picked up the garment. Butch whimpered as Arthur knelt down to the murdered body .Once again Butch let out a yelp at the sight of Arthur to closing the man's dead eyes. Arthur disregarded the dramatic duo and with the jacket in hand, he respectfully and carefully placed the jacket over the Officers face.

"Don't worry, he is dead. I thought he might be able to convalesce from this but he is dead" he said grimly, again frowning at the body.
"Other Officers, undoubtedly, will come here. When they do just point him out and they should take care of the rest. But as with all things, I leave this to your discretion; do to him with what you want. Notwithstanding my efforts for a peaceful resolution it would appear resolve is not a peaceful word to him, let it never be said the attempt to resolve the affair amicably was found lacking on my behalf." Arthur said and promptly walked from the room as Ellen yet again fainted as he passed her.

Arthur gave one last solemn look back to the paled face of his victim. Little did his heart want more than to repent for his actions, but to emotional distress, relief would have to wait.

Amata had been running from level to level for the past twenty minutes. She was trying to make her way up to the console systems that she was at before when she had shut down the doors. The route she took was through the stairs, deciding against another climb through the pipe hell hole which had caused her so much injury. The vault echoed with the screams of alarms and the Overseer's voice which urged calm. Amata found herself being repulsed by the sound of her father voice. With each word he said, a little bit of her grew against him. There were Officer Patrols everywhere and by now Amata suspected they had found the body of Officer Mack.

The panic of the vault had truly set in. The rooms of people were locked and from them, crying of children and adults alike could be heard and if truth be told, Amata, under other circumstances would have joined them in the wailing. Nothing had been so melancholy in her life but this. The world as she knew it was thrown upside down in the most brutal of fashions. The objective she had set herself was to try and find out why James had left. She had made her way undetected to the upper levels once more but found her progress almost stop, for fear of being seen. Any concerted attempt to run the distance would have shown herself up to the guards that frequently patrolled the atrium. Her stealthy movements were agonisingly slow but they succeeded in hiding her.

She had managed to sneak her way right back to where she had started, and now she could start ripping information from the main computer console. Every file she opened she scanned quickly for the relevant information, searching for Arthur or James' name in particular, though a large majority of the files were meaningless code. Amata had worked herself into a craze, she was frantically typing at the keyboard of the mainframe, regardless of the pain in her fingers, but like a wild animal, whenever a sound came from the halls, she would dart her head upwards, searching intensely before tentatively returning to the keyboard. She was terribly exposed as the mainframe was both alongside a corridor and only metres away from the guard room where Jonas had died not long before.

Every file opened was a minute wasted. It was remarkable how she hadn't been caught yet; at least three times Amata had to dive for cover behind a pillar to avoid another squad on patrol. By now Amata had given up on the mainframe, it was a pointless exercise, resulting in no gains for invaluable time wasted. Amata was closing down the system and trying to wipe her digital fingerprint from the code when from the corridor leading to the security room came a large bang. Amata snapped her head around in a fight or flight reaction and froze to the spot.

From the doorway of the security room a figure was thrown out onto the floor, crashing painfully against the concrete, head first. The figure tried to scramble to its feet in a desperate gamble to flee from whatever was pursuing it. The figure scrambled two metres towards Amata before another figure entered the doorway. Amata looked on in intense curiosity as she tried to work out what was happening. The figure on the floor looked up to Amata and stared her right in the eye with a pained helpless look.

With this Amata knew she couldn't stand there any longer, lest the ominous assailant would see her too. The pillar was the tried and tested cover and she quickly darted behind it, steading her breathing and listening intently.

"No no no no no!" came a cry followed by a heavy fist hitting flesh.

There was a brief groan and a lot of pained heaving. Amata could only hear movements but couldn't translate them into actions. The rapid fumbling in the background sounded like a one way struggle, and imagination had the man on the floor at the losing end of it. More pained breathing and heaving followed as another punch was thrown, followed by a crumpling sound, probably of a man hitting the floor again. The room seems to compress around Amata's ears.

"Open the doors, Floyd" came a voice.

"I don't know how. I don't work on the computers, I'm a mechanic not a technician!" came the reply.

"Then explain why most of the doors to the lower levels are locked?" came the reply.

By now Amata had realised that the assailant was Chief Officer Hannon, a brute of a man, who was always punctual and dedicated to the cause of the vault. A nice enough man when he worked for you, as he did for Amata, but not a pleasant superior. On the floor audibly whimpering and crying was Floyd Lewis, a capable vault mechanic who had distinguished himself during The Incident a year ago and was widely lauded to succeed from Stanley. He was a quiet man, a loner by his own admission. Though Arthur was an aloof character, Floyd was difficult to get along with, lacking any scene of charisma.

Another bout of beatings made Amata cringe in pity for the man. She contemplated giving herself up to protect Floyd but she needed to protect Arthur, even if it meant the pain of Floyd.

"You have three seconds before I remove your manhood" came a grunt as Hannon forced Floyd against the wall.

"I can't! I swear to god I can't! I don't know who did it but I promise you on my life… my life… that I can't open them again. I was never taught!"

Hannon threw Floyd to the floor again.

"Then learn" he said as he kicked him in the stomach. Floyd coughed violently from the impact and writhed around on the floor. Hannon pushed Floyd along the floor to the console and booted him again for good measure. A visceral abstract image of the beating burned into Amata's mind, feeling nothing but raw pity for Floyd, who, whilst not deserving of the punishment, took the beating not in silence, but in a rancorous bout of cries and screams, tearing any sense of dignity from him. With each cry came a retort of anger from the Officer, who, far from being concerned for the wellbeing, positively relished in his sickening act of brutality.

"All I am asking, and it is quite simple, is for you to disengage those locks so my men can find him. That's all. Then you can go" he same, placing his foot on Floyd again.

"Okay, okay" he choked. "I'll do my best. But I swear to god, I don't know how to or who did" he said as he hoisted his battered body from the floor, grasping at the console.

A brief moment of inaudible activity passed.

"I… I … I…." Floyd stumbled

"You are going to get on to that damn computer and tell me who the fuck is fucking about with my vault!" he said assertively.

Amata's heart began to race even faster. She hadn't completed the full shutdown and if he told Hannon she would be in as much trouble as Arthur was. There wasn't even an escape route, as desperately as she tried to look for one. The pillar that kept her hidden also kept her trapped. She couldn't run for an exit, Hannon always carried a pistol and with the possibility of Floyd giving her up, she became increasingly worried about the outcome of the next few minutes. The room shrank even more as every sound was amplified and every movement translated by her mind and traced across the hall, creating an awareness of the locations of the two men, despite not having moved from her position for fear of capture.

"I can't do it. I told you I couldn't do it. Please don't hurt me" Floyd cried.

"I asked you to do one thing. Just one little thing" Hannon shouted back "Who did this! Who shut them down!"

"I …" Floyd said, glancing over to Amata's pillar. "I don't know" he said back unconvincingly.
"Liar!" Hannon shouted, laying into Floyd yet again. The beating was truly atrocious, Hannon kicked the man's head with his steel capped boots several times, accompanying that was a furious bout of punches to the abdomen, creating a rolled up Floyd, nose bleeding, on the floor crying for mercy.

"She's over there!" he cried, trying to end the onslaught.

Immediately Hannon froze and Amata's heart gasped as she tightened her fists, trying to stop herself panicking. She knew that whatever beating Floyd was enduring she would also receive if Hannon got hold of her. Hannon was the definition of brainwashed. Her father had indoctrinated within him a deep passion for the Vault, at the compromised expense of compassion for other people.

"By the pillar, she did it. Speak to her, she locked the doors" he said sobbing.

Without a sound the officer approached the pillar. Amata couldn't do anything. If she moved she would be given away, if she stayed she would be given away. Frantically considering her options she pushed herself against the pillar, trying to find some way of avoiding the Officer.

"Boo" came a voice from Amata's ear sending her stumbling sidewards in sheer terror. The officer had assailed her position without a sound.

She fell to the floor, and as Floyd did, she scrambled for safety, but to no avail as the Officer grabbed her by the hair, forcefully dragging her into the middle of the room. She kicked and screamed the whole way. Little is more painful but less damaging than pulling hair and Amata was receiving this lesson first hand as she tried to push herself towards the direction of tension to lessen the pain. He released her by Floyd who gave her an incredibly apologetic look,

"I take it you heard all that then" Hannon said, bearing down from above her.

Amata said nothing but fearfully looked to her attacker. Her lips were quivering with an intense dread, but a different type of horror than she had experienced when she had shot Officer Mack, but no less potent. Hannon smiled as he saw an opportunity for his aggressive diplomacy. He upholstered the gun and cocked the hammer back.

"Don't hurt her" Floyd said, attempting to be gallant.

Officer Hannon gave them both a sly, intimidating look.

"I'm not going to hurt her" he said as he drew out his pistol to Floyd's leg and squeezed the trigger.

I hope you're enjoying this. I know none of this happens in the actual game, but its always confused me as to why there were so many lose ends, missing wall segments for example. I am enjoying writing this very much but I would like your feedback on this. Its my first fan fiction and I need to test the water as it were. I would like something critical, highlighting pros and cons, so if anyone could do that for me, i would appreciate it very much. Again thankyou for reading and any comments that you may have, i would love to address them, so please feel free to either PM me or review.
Thankyou ever so much
Nathan