Chapter 10

Kline took out a pair of handcuffs and bound her wrist to his. It seemed to be necessary; she doubted that they, wearing all their armor, would be able to catch her if she ran. "I can't go this way," Lydia protested when he led her southwest. She told him what Shin had said about the collar exploding if she went away from Paradise Falls.

"Don't worry about that," he said. "It's not far off, and we've got someone who knows how to get it off without triggering the bomb."

Thankfully, he was correct and the camp was only a short distance away. It consisted of a small circle of canvas tents, some cargo crates, and two portable turrets, which beeped and looked at them with reflective camera lenses. Hale and Kline took her into one of the tents while the rest of the soldiers dispersed throughout the camp. A gas lamp dangling from the center of the ceiling wobbled as they came in, making shadows leap across the tent walls. A woman wearing a brown uniform sat underneath it at a foldable aluminum table, writing something in a notebook. She looked up at them, pushing a short curl of dark hair out of her eyes. "This is the escapee? Oh. Another slave collar."

"Yep. Can you take it from here, Carmen?" Hale said.

"Yes, Ma'am." She cleared everything off the table, and Kline told Lydia to sit in the stool opposite of the woman. He unlocked the handcuff from his wrist and fastened it onto the pole that held up the center of the tent.

Carmen briefly searched for several items in boxes around the tent, coming back with a screwdriver, a bobby pin, and a pair of wire cutters. She went to Lydia's side and tipped her chin up and to the side so that she could easily reach the left side of the collar: the bulky block that emitted heat while the rest of the collar was cool. Lydia was aware of the others taking a collective step back.

"You've done this before?" Lydia asked.

"Yes," the woman replied tonelessly. "Keep still. This is delicate work."

Lydia swallowed, and the collar moved up and down. She decided not to do that again. Carmen unscrewed something, setting down tiny screws on the table. She held her hand in place over the block and carefully pried a part of it open a miniscule amount. Picking up the bobby pin, she edged it inside. Lydia wished she could tell what she was doing. She realized that she was clenching her jaw and holding her breath, but she didn't dare relax now.

Having positioned the bobby pin appropriately, the woman pulled open the door in the block. Holding the bobby pin very still, she pulled the wire cutters from her pocket and reached them into the opened panel of the collar. Snip. Snip. Something clicked and the collar fell open. She took it off and set it on the table with the screws.

For the first time in almost a week, Lydia felt air on her bare neck. The lack of weight on her shoulders made her feel a little floaty. "Thank you," she said. Carmen ignored her and sat down at the table again. She got out another notebook, flipped to a blank page, and wrote across the top of it in pencil-Vault Behavioral Project: 101. Seeing Lydia lean forward to read it, she tipped it up so she couldn't see. Lydia sat back in her stool, and she kept writing.

Hale and Kline removed their helmets to reveal sweaty faces surrounded by manes of hat hair. They made themselves comfortable, sitting on crates and cots.

Lydia cleared her throat and tried to sound less nervous than she was. "Why, exactly, have you been looking for me?" She wasn't sure who to direct the question at, so she looked around at all of them. They stared back at her with mild amazement. It seemed that she was a bit of an anomaly for them. Harris was right about people from vaults attracting attention. Unfortunately, just changing her clothes didn't seem to be enough to evade these people.

Hale answered bitterly, "Do you have any idea how long we've been trying to get into that vault? Whenever we radio the inside, no one answers. If it weren't for the signals the Pip-Boys were sending out, we'd have thought that everyone in there was dead. When one of that vault's citizens suddenly waltzes out, it's not an opportunity to be wasted."

Lydia glanced at her Pip-Boy. It had never occurred to her that someone else might be monitoring the GPS signal. But why would they care? Why would they want to get into the vault? She opened her mouth to tell them she couldn't help them, that they wouldn't let her back in either, then stopped. If that was all they wanted her for, it might be the only reason they hadn't killed her yet.

Carmen finally finished writing. "What's you're name?" she asked, pencil hovering over the paper. Lydia told her, and she scribbled something down.

"Your parents' names?"

"James and Catherine. Same last name." Why would she possibly want to know this? She wrote for much longer than it would take to jot down the names, and again Lydia itched to see what she was writing.

"Do you have any siblings?"

"No."

"Grandparents' names?"

"Um... I don't know."

She wrote something down anyway.

"Aunts and Uncles?"

"I don't have any." The woman nodded slowly, never taking her eyes from her paper. Hale and Kline watched Lydia like she was a TV, and she fidgeted uncomfortably. "What do you want to know this for?" she asked. No one answered her this time.

"How many people are currently living in Vault 101?"

Lydia shrugged weakly. "I don't know the exact number... "

"Approximate."

"Like... seventy?" Scribble, scribble. Shouldn't they know this, if they monitored the Pip-Boys? They just wanted to know if she knew.

"How will you know she's not lying?" Hale interrupted.

"I wouldn't worry about that, Ma'am. If she is, it will become clear soon, and we can always get the real answers from her later. But that in itself would be an interesting result, if she did decide to make something up." Hale nodded"Give me the names of all the Vault 101 citizens you can think of."

At first Lydia was reluctant to give them the information, but she could think of no reason not to tell the truth, especially with Hale's threat that hanging over her head. They were all safe in the vault, anyway, weren't they? She listed everyone in her class, then all of their family members, then everyone who came in for regular checkups at the clinic. She paused between names so the uniformed woman had time to write them down.

The questions went on and on. Who was the current Overseer? How many times had the vault been opened before? How did she open the door? What laws were currently enforced in the vault? Who was on the security force? What weapons did they carry? What does the school curriculum entail? After a while she noticed that she sometimes repeated questions from earlier. She thought it was a mistake the first time, but then she kept doing it. Checking for consistency. As Lydia answered, she looked discreetly around the tent. She had to get out of there. She had to find Harris. There had to be some way out. Maybe she could pick the lock on the handcuffs...

Her gaze fell on the table. The bobby pin was still sitting there next to the collar and the screwdriver.

She moved her eyes onward, not lingering and drawing attention to it. That was it. That little hair pin was her chance. Could she take it without anyone noticing? Doubtful. But what else could she do? It was either try to escape and possibly be caught and punished for it, or sit there until they ran out of questions and decided to kill her. Or maybe they won't kill me. Maybe they'll just let me leave. She glanced up at Hale, who looked no less intimidating than before. Seeing her looking, the Enclave sergeant straightened and glared back at her, the way one might look at a disobedient child. Yeah. They'll let me go, just like they were going to let Andy and Harris go.

As she answered the uniformed woman's questions, she grew more and more drowsy. She didn't know what time it had been when the soldiers came to the circle of cars, but it was very late... or very early. Now the sun was beginning to shine into the tent, and Lydia's shadow fell across the table. So, it was only natural for her to lean forward and rest her arm on the table. Or so she hoped. The soldiers watched her intently still, though she could see exhaustion wearing on them, too. Carmen showed no such signs of fatigue, firing questions incessantly as the hours dragged by.

"I think that's enough for now," Hale finally said.

"Yes Ma'am. We can continue tomorrow." It had been very quiet while Carmen was questioning, and now that it was over, the rustling of the everyone stretching and getting up was noticeably noisy. Out of the corner of her eye, Lydia caught Hale turn to pick up her helmet, and Carmen was absorbed in her notes, still writing. There wasn't going to be a better chance than this. She casually swept her arm slightly to the side as she pulled it from the tabletop. The bobby pin made a tiny noise as it scraped across the metal table, but her Pip-Boy made a louder one. It was enough to cover the sound of the pin as it dropped off the table and into her lap.

Hale looked at Kline. "You can have first watch. I'll tell everyone else to get some sleep."

"Right." He bent down beside her and unlocked the handcuffs. Hale moved past her. She shifted to get out of their way, and as she moved her free arm over her lap, she tucked the pin into the space between her Pip-Boy and her arm. To her surprise, no one stopped. No one saw. She watched Kline and tried not to look suspicious. Her heart pounded as Carmen cleared everything off the table, but she didn't even look twice at the objects before dropping them into into a toolbox. She left the collar on the table and went back to her notebook.

Kline stood up easily, seeming unencumbered by his armor. "This way." Lydia stumbled along beside him on legs that had fallen asleep. They walked past the turrets again, which, eerily, turned to follow them with their cameras. The soldier took her into a smaller tent that contained little more than a cot on one side and a table and stool on the other. There wasn't a pole in the middle like the other one, so he closed her empty handcuff around the legs of his cot. Lydia leaned against the wall of the tent, but it gave precariously. She settled into a cross-legged position instead.

Kline unrolled the cloth door to the tent so that it hovered just above the ground, and began removing his armor. It looked like it would be difficult, but he did it quickly and easily. He was a pretty big guy, even without the armor. She supposed you'd have to be to walk around in that outfit all day.

He went to a crate and pulled out a bottle of water and a packet of something. He started up a small propane stove and poured the water into a pot. Instant coffee?

"Aren't you going to sleep?" she asked.

"I've got to watch you, remember? Which means keeping my eyes open."

"Not like I'm going anywhere," she muttered, raising her handcuffed wrist.

"Yeah, well. You've fooled us once before. Maybe you'll do it again."

After a few minutes steam rose from his water, so he turned off the propane feed, dumped in the contents of the packet into a ceramic mug, and poured the water in. "Do you want to sleep?"

"Why?"

"You can use my bed, if you want."

"Oh. Thanks," she said, but she didn't move. Kline sipped the coffee. Lydia had never had it before, but it looked unappetizing. "So," she said, "this is some kind of sociology experiment. You guys want to know about what's happened inside the vaults since the Great War." She wouldn't have asked in Hale's presence, but Kline seemed less uptight than her and the others.

He looked at her over the rim of his cup. "I'm not supposed to tell you," he said slowly. Which indicated, to her, that she was correct. But he knew that, judging by the meaningful look he shot her. Why was he doing that? How much trouble would he get into for telling her what they were up to?

"Why not?"

"Can't tell you that either. Sorry."

"What is the Enclave?" she said. "Can you at least tell me that?"

"Of course." He visibly loosened, taking another swig of brown liquid. "We're the American Government. What's left of it. We follow Colonel Augustus Autumn, and he takes orders directly from the president, John Henry Eden." He said it in a quick, monotonous manner. It seemed to be something he had heard and repeated many times. "Haven't you seen the eyebots?"

"Oh. I guess I have." After her initial curiosity, the little flying robots had become just another part of the landscape. She'd quickly figured out that you couldn't communicate with them, and if you tried to touch them, you'd get a faceful of laser.

"I didn't think there would be any government out here, when I was in the vault," she said. "And if I did, this isn't what I would've expected," she muttered to herself. Kline heard anyway.

"And what did you expect?"

"Well, I had the impression that the military didn't just go around killing its own citizens."

"Looks like you were wrong."

"Are you going to kill me, when that woman is done asking questions?"

"That's not for me to decide."

God, she had to get out of there. She looked him in the eye. "I don't want to die."

That got him. She didn't think of herself as some great manipulator of people, but she could pull on a cute face when she wanted to. He stared at his coffee, swirling it around in the bottom of the cup. "Yeah, I don't know a lot of people that do. Go to sleep, why don't you?"

Her handcuffs clanged against the metal legs of the cot as she crawled onto it. She had to hold one arm above her head while she lay there, but it was still infinitely more comfortable than the ground. At least if she died trying to escape today, she had gotten to lay on something other than the ground one last time. "Thanks," she said again. "For the bed." Might as well try to stay on his good side. Maybe if he felt guilty enough he'd take pity on her. It was worth a try, at least.

"Yeah, sure," was all he said.

She closed her eyes and didn't move. She slowed her breathing and let her muscles go slack, pretending to be asleep in the hopes that he'd eventually leave to go to the bathroom or something.

Then she woke up. She didn't remember falling asleep, but there she was, waking up. She checked her Pip-Boy. Almost an hour had passed since she'd gotten on the bed. She twisted her neck to see what the soldier was doing. He was sitting at the table, propping his head up with his arm. His hand was squashing his face into a comical expression. Lydia blinked, struggling to focus her eyes through post-sleep bleariness. When it cleared, she saw that his eyes were closed. He was asleep.

Without hesitation she sat up, held her Pip-Boy to widen the gap between it and her skin, and shook it to make the bobby pin fall out. She waited for it to drop onto the bed, but nothing came out. She peered down into the gap. There was nothing there but pale skin. It was gone. She swore quietly. It must have fallen out while she was sleeping. For several minutes she ran her hand over the cloth of the bed and her clothes, fruitlessly searching the creases for the tiny metal clip. It was nowhere on her or on the cot, nor on the ground next to her.

Finally, just as she was about to give up hope, she spotted it on the dirt floor underneath the bed. She could just barely see it lying there in the shadows. She had to lean over the side of the bed to take it, and the metal of the cot creaked loudly. She grabbed the pin and looked up to see if she'd woken Kline, but he hadn't moved.

She stuck her head and shoulders over the top edge of the bed so she had a good view of the cuffs. On the big rectangular bit next to her wrist was a tiny keyhole. The bobby pin was already a little bent from previous use, but not enough to make it an ineffective pick. She unfolded it and stuck the flat side into the hole. It fit perfectly. She closed her eyes as she felt the inside of the lock with the metal prong. There were walls on three sides, but toward the inside there was a space where the key was meant to enter. She took out the bobby pin and bit it, bending the end. Now, twisting it inside the hole, she could feel a catch. She pushed against it, and the ring around her wrist released with a small click. Well, that wasn't too hard.

She shed the handcuffs, which left red lines on her arm. She was rubbing them away when Kline spoke.

"Sneaky kid." He stared at her incredulously. There was a string of sleepy drool on his cheek.

Lydia wanted to run. Every muscle in her body screamed the desire, but she knew it was pointless. He didn't have the armor to weigh him down now. He'd definitely catch her before she even got out of the camp.

The soldier slowly wiped his face. Lydia sat back on the bed and looked back at him, waiting for him to decide what to do with her.

He stood and went to the cloth door of the tent, pushing it aside so he could look out. "Looks like everyone's still sleeping." he said quietly. He sat back down at the table. He took a heavy breath and lowered his voice so that she could barely hear him. "It's too bad, but I fell asleep. When I woke up, you were gone. Nothing I could do about it."

"What?"

He leaned on his arm again, and closed his eyes. He sat there motionless, as though, like he said, he hadn't woken up at all. Lydia couldn't believe what she was seeing. She leaped off the bed and dashed to the door before he could change his mind. She paused there before she left, giving him one last glance. He opened one eye to look back at her.

She nodded to him uncertainly, and left.