"Doctor Fairchild, get the lights! I think she's coming!"
Grinning at Amata's excitement, James did as she asked and flipped off the lights in the cafeteria. They were all plunged into a surprisingly deep darkness.
"What the hell?" Butch exclaimed from somewhere.
"Shhhh! Be quiet or she'll hear us!" Amata hissed in response.
They all listened as the unsuspecting ten year old on the other side flipped open the door panel. The door to the cafeteria shot up, revealing the pitch-blackness inside it. James saw his daughter blink in confusion a few time before he flipped the lights back on.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Amata practically screamed running over to her best friend and giving her a hug.
"Don't crush the poor kid," Stanley said from the corner, laughing.
"Me and your Dad planned this! Aren't you surprised?"
"Yeah!" Sara admitted, glancing over at James. He winked at her.
"Let me show you what I got you!" Amata continued excitedly. She grabbed Sara's hand and dragged her over to the bulletin board where a very sparkly gift bag lay propped against the wall.
"You have to guess what it is first!"
"Is it a book?" Sara asked. Jonas liked to joke that she'd have read each book in the library at least five times each by the time she turned 20. In truth, it was probably a distinct possibility.
"No!" Amata told her, gleeful that her friend had not guessed what the gift was. She shoved the bag into the birthday girl's hands. "Open it!"
Sara did as told, carefully extracting the balled up tissue paper, smoothing and flattening it out and then laying it carefully on the table next to her. James couldn't help but be amused by this: he saw his tendency toward scientific precision in her more and more everyday.
She pulled a well-loved issue of the ever-popular Grognak the Barbarian from the depths of the sparkly bag and shook it in a spasm of excitement.
"Thanks, Amata!"
"It's Issue #14 too. I know you'd been wanting that one for ages, and I finally found it!"
James made to go over to his daughter, but the Overseer stepped up and laid a hand on her shoulder. She shrunk away from it instinctively. She had always been aware of the Overseer's general dislike and mistrust of her and her father, but she did not know the reason. James wished he could tell her. Someday, he would.
"Now that you're ten, you can truly begin life as a productive citizen of Vault 101. You will receive your first work assignment tomorrow. Also…"
Overseer Almodovar made an impatient gesture at Stanley Armstrong who scuttled forward and handed over a sizeable hunk of metal. The Overseer reached down, grabbed Sara's arm and connected the Pip-Boy 3000 onto her wrist. James felt something inside of him break…was it hope? His little girl was being handcuffed to this place. Each day he waited, she became more and more entangled in its prison. But he simply could not leave her…not while she was still a child.
"You take good care of that now," the Overseer told her. "It's an older model, but that doesn't mean it's worth any less."
"It's the most reliable model out there, in my opinion," Stanley told her. "I reckon you could drop a bomb on it and it would still work…As a matter of fact, I know you could." Overseer Almodovar shot the man a dangerous look, and Stanley backed away. Sara was still staring up at the Overseer in horror.
"How about some cake?" James interjected. His daughter snapped out of her terrified daze at the sound of his voice.
"Mr. Armstrong, will you show me up to work my Pip-Boy?" she asked. Stanley smiled at her, visibly delighted by her polite tone. He was a kind individual, but his occupation was less than glamorous. As a result, he had grown used to being treated rudely. He bent down to her level and began to show her how to work the buttons around the edges.
James headed over to the bar and nodded at Andy to cut the cake that Jonas' grandmother had baked for the occasion.
"Certainly, sir!" the robot cried happily. The spinning blade on one of his long extensions whirred loudly to life. James saw the disaster about to unfold three seconds before it did. He opened his mouth to protest but too late…Andy had brought the spinning blade down onto the cake. Blue and purple icing sprayed everywhere as Andy accidentally dislodged a sizeable chunk of the cake. In a panic, the robot stopped his whirring blade quite suddenly, and the hunk of cake flew across the cafeteria and narrowly avoided hitting Officer Gomez in the face. To James' relief, Sara began to laugh.
"I'm so terribly sorry, sir!" Andy practically screamed. "I do seem to have ruined the cake!"
"It's okay, Andy," James told the robot.
"I'm terribly, terribly sorry!" Andy continued to cry.
Hoping to salvage some aspect of this birthday, James sidled over to the intercom and paged the basement.
"'Sup, doc?" Jonas's voice crackled through it a few seconds later.
"Are you about ready?"
"Uh…yup. Send her down whenever you want. Did you take the ammo this morning? I can't find it."
"I've got it. Thanks a lot, Jonas. I'll send her down in a little while. The cake is a no-go."
"What happened to it?"
"Andy."
"Oh, geez!" Jonas laughed. "I eagerly await the birthday girl's arrival."
"Ow, don't you hit me!" A shrill voice sounded from the other side of the cafeteria, and James turned just in time to see Sara land a punch directly on Butch's right cheekbone.
"That's enough!" Officer Gomez pulled the squabbling children apart. "Butch, sit down! Leave the girl alone on her birthday!"
"She punched me!"
"You hit me first!" Sara protested. "I was defending myself!"
"Enough!"
Butch plopped back down into his seat, clearly defeated. Sara glared at him as she took out one of Old Lady Palmer's sweetrolls from her pocket and handed a piece to Amata.
James felt his mouth fall open in delighted shock. So Sara had finally done what he, as an adult, could not and showed Butch that he could not always win. The rest of the party seemed to have recovered, but for James, the aftermath of the moment lingered. So many times his little girl had come back from school crying or sporting a new bruise, and he'd held her and lied to her that it would be all right. But that punch…that was a streak of independence. That was what he'd longed to see: a hint that Sara would do just fine on her own.
At this realization, however, he grew sad. He certainly wanted to return to Project Purity as soon as humanly possible, but with each passing day he realized how heart-breakingly difficult it would be to leave his daughter. Were the remnants of Project Purity still at the Memorial? The red-haired ten year old now giggling as Stanley Armstrong plunked a baseball hat down onto her head was the only part of Catherine he was absolutely positive still existed. He wanted to take her with him so badly…to free her ever-inquiring mind and show her that this prison was not all there was to life. There was a vast Wasteland just above the surface, and though fraught with danger and the scum of humanity, it was beautiful in its own right. It served as a stark reminder that the planet would recover even after a nuclear apocalypse. Earth would go on, even when humans no longer existed…
And James was positive that, given a few more years, Sara would undoubtedly surpass him in intelligence. Just as soon as he'd established that it was safe…that the Project's findings remained in tact…he'd come back to the Vault and bring her with him. He'd bring Jonas too. They all deserved so much more than this.
But, for now, she was still only ten, and he was excited to give her her birthday gift. He approached her from behind, bent down and grabbed her around the waist. She squealed delightedly and turned to face him.
"Hey kiddo. Why don't you head down to the basement soon? Jonas and I have a birthday gift to give you."
"Really?"
"You bet, little lady." He gave her Pip-Boy a tap. "I'm very proud of you, sweetheart. I can't believe you're already ten."
"I don't like the Pip-Boy," she confessed in a whisper. "I mean, it's cool, but it feels weird on my arm. It's kind of heavy."
"You'll get used to it fairly quickly." James knew that, at least from his viewpoint, this was a lie. Trying to carry an infant around with the newly attached hunk of metal had proven quite a challenge. Perhaps, as a ten-year-old child, she would adapt more quickly. "It's sleeping on it that proves the most difficult."
"Do you think they recycle these, Daddy? Like take someone's once they've died, clean it, and give it to another person?"
"I…I don't know. Why?"
"I always hoped I'd get Mommy's old Pip-Boy." Sara surveyed her model carefully. "Do you think it's hers?"
James choked on his words. Would there ever be a moment when this little girl did not cease to amaze him?
"Well, whether it is or it isn't, I know she'd be very proud of you too." He gave her a gentle, little push toward the door. "Now, go on and meet Jonas in the basement!"
"Okay!" Sara scurried out into the hallway, running a little lopsided with the newly added weight to her right arm.
James gave her a few minutes head start. He checked and double-checked that the BB gun's ammunition still rattled in his lab coat's pocket. Beatrice Armstrong sauntered into the cafeteria and called out to him,
"You have such a lovely daughter, Dr. Fairchild! I just gave her her birthday poem."
Fighting back the mad urge to laugh at the idea of a birthday poem from Beatrice, James smiled at her. He made a mental note to ask Sara how she'd navigated that tricky territory. What a clever girl she kept proving herself to be.
On his way out into the hallway, he chanced a glance back at Butch. The little brat sat sulkily nursing an impressive bruise that was blossoming from his cheekbone right where Sara had landed the punch. Doctor and bully's eyes met for a second. James grinned at him, just a tad smugly. Butch quickly looked away in shame.
"There's more where that came from, Butch," he muttered to himself as he left the cafeteria. "I guarantee it."
James stayed hidden behind the doorframe as he listened to the conversation he and Jonas had rehearsed unfold.
"What're you doing in here?" Jonas demanded in his best attempt at sternness. He performed well. "You know kids aren't allowed down in the lab."
The Overseer had recently instated a rule that kids were forbidden from being in the basement when Jonas and Sara's antics (involving a gurney propelled by a small engine they had built together) loudly ended the life of several test tubes. James had to admit the sound with which the tubes exploded, as the gurney crashed into them was quite magnificent, but the Overseer did not take this same point of view.
"I just…my Dad told me to meet you down here…"
"Relax, kiddo. I'm joking with you! Your dad and I have made you a little birthday surprise. It took a lot of work and ages to find the spring the loader needed, so I hope you think it's pretty cool."
"A surprise?" Sara asked. "What kind of surprise?"
"Here, I'll give you a hint," James said, stepping out from the hallway and into the basement. Sara started at the sound of his voice and wheeled around to look at him. He retrieved the box of ammunition from his lab coat pocket and held it out to her.
She took it very gingerly and pulled the box close to her nose to examine it. Both realization and confusion dawned on her face at the same time.
"Ammunition?" she asked. "Isn't that for guns?"
Jonas walked over to the safe hidden under one of the lab desks and carefully extracted the BB gun from it. He made sure to shut and lock it quickly. Only he and James knew it contained more than a reconstructed BB gun: it also contained small-scale Project Purity experiments. James had finally cracked about a year ago and confessed their continuation to his colleague. To his delight, Jonas demanded to help in any way he could.
"Whoa!" Sara cried, taking in the sight of the gun balanced on Jonas' outstretched hands. "Is it really for me?"
"You bet it is," Jonas told her. "Go ahead and take it!"
The ten year old reached out cautiously and took the small gun into her hands. She seemed simultaneously terrified of and awed by it.
"I won't always be around to protect you," James said, swallowing the lump that arose in his throat as he spoke these words. The continuation of the Project Purity experiments convinced him more and more everyday that he must someday return to the vital work he, Catherine, and Madison began over a decade ago. As much as he hated the idea of being away from his daughter, he knew he must begin preparing the both of them for his departure one day. "So you need to learn how to look out for yourself."
Sara seemed oblivious to the hidden meaning behind these words and looked expectantly up at him.
"Can I shoot it?" she asked excitedly.
"Only down here in the basement," James told her firmly. "We'll keep the gun down here too. It will be our little secret, okay?"
Sara nodded in comprehension.
"Your dad and I happened to see a Radroach scuttling around down here this morning," said Jonas. "We also set up a target system for you to practice on. Let's see how well you shoot."
They made their way into the adjoining room. It was considerably darker and always smelled damp. Crisscrossing pipes leaked steam loudly. James thought of a time when Sara feared all the noises in this room and refused to enter. He couldn't help but feel a little sad for how quickly she was growing up.
"You see those three targets?" he asked, bending down to her level. "See if you can hit each one. They will swing back if you get a shot on the target."
He showed her how to load the ammo into the chamber and reminded her that she must use extreme caution. Her gift was still a gift, but it was no toy.
She fired at the center target and missed wildly. The round clanged loudly as it ricocheted around some long abandoned pipes in the back of the room. Sara instinctively ducked even though there was no danger. Jonas began to laugh, though not unkindly. Sara grinned sheepishly at him.
"It's okay," James said. "Try again. Take a deep breath and let it out before you shoot. It will help steady your hand and your aim."
Sara repositioned the BB in her hands, took in a deep breath, and let it out in a slow whistle. She pulled the trigger slowly and the round fired.
It did not hit the actual target by any means but smashed reassuringly into the red metal bar that connected the target to the pipe. It gave a feeble wobble, and Sara gave a loud cheer.
"I almost hit it!" she cried. "Did you see that, Daddy?" Both men grinned at her rampant enthusiasm.
"I did see it!" James replied. "That was much better. Keep trying, and I know you'll get it!"
It took half the box of ammunition James had set aside for that day until Sara hit the target on the left. Judging by her look of surprise, he wasn't entirely sure that this happened by good shooting so much as by chance, but he cheered loudly nonetheless.
And in the end, Jonas used both of his shoes, one on each hand, to beat the scuttling Radroach to death while Sara squealed dramatically and James bent double in laughter at the sight.