Chapter Ten

Departure

~ August 31, 2277 ~

I wandered through the dark, cold, metallic corridors as if I were completely unfamiliar with them and had not lived my entire life looking at the bolts that kept them together. I continued towards the end of the hall. My apartment was ahead, just around the corner and probably locked up as I had left it. It was nice to be home, somewhere I could be safe, and forget about all my trouble.

"Bet he'll be pissed when he sees it," I said to myself as I spun the spray paint can around. "Asshole got what was coming to 'em." I laughed as I envisioned my vandalism that had adorned the wall just below Overseer Almodovar's lookout in the atrium. Oh, sure, I would be in trouble the next day. Vault 101 was tiny, so it wouldn't be very hard to find the culprit, but I at least had that night to revel in my misdeeds like the evil mastermind I believed myself to be.

The door hissed, let out a blast of steam and slid upwards into the wall. That familiar cold air that had a smell of rust, medicine, and a tinge of alcohol lingered around my nose for just the right amount of time. I guess you never really think about those type of things, like how your home smells or how thick the air always seems until you are removed from it for good.

My father was zonked out on the couch with a half-empty bottle of scotch on the table next to him. Dad was not an alcoholic by any means, but he did enjoy a drink from time to time. He was probably just exhausted from the in and out patients that populated his office from day to day and needed something to relax. It was rarely anything serious, but taking care of a seemingly endless number of scrapes, cuts, bruises, sniffles and colds can wear you out. Dad's constant snoring was certainly something you had to get used to if you happened to visit my home during the late hours of the night.

I took a blanket out from the closet and placed it over him. "Jeez, dad. Always working your fingers to the bone, aren't you?" I whispered under the cover of his thundering snoring. He offered up an unintelligible grumble and continued his deep slumber.

I proceeded to my room, the next one over and let the door slide down behind me. A thick cloud of darkness covered every inch of the room. A flip of the wall switch and the low buzzing of the overhead lights filled my ears and the darkness retreated. I drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

I hardly had enough time to think about setting my spray paint down on the desk in the corner before sirens lit up and screamed.

"Vault 101 is now under lock-down. All residents, return to your quarters on the lower level immediately." Overseer Almodovar commanded from the intercom speaker above me.

I let out an exasperated sigh and plopped down on my bed. The bastard couldn't even allow us to enjoy our down time without his obnoxious voice droning on and on. It would be over soon enough, and then I could go to sleep. A knock on my door startled me, despite being barely audible over the sirens.

"Probably dad," I muttered as I stood up again and scratched the back of my head. "Sirens must've woke him up," I explained to no one as the door slip open once again. "Yeah, dad, I'm in here. I'm alright," I assured before I saw who was on the other side of the door.

It wasn't my father. It was the Overseer.

"Shit!" I said as I jumped backward and punched the button to close the door. "The hell is going on?" I exclaimed while I grabbed my baseball bat, The Ass-Beater, and got into swinging stance. Everything started to come back to me in waves. The Overseer was dead, I murdered him myself! Why was he in my room?

Why was I in Vault 101?

Alphonse continued to pound on the door. Each hit grew louder and louder, it echoed more and more. He screamed so angrily and loudly at me that his words were impossible to understand, except for one sentence.

"You and your father don't belong here."

I kept the door closed as he continued to punish it in hopes of reaching me. He wasn't getting in, though.

"You and your father don't belong here." He whispered in my ear from behind me.

I nearly screamed as I scrambled to cycle the door again. He didn't make a move, but I wasn't about to give him time to shoot me or stab me in the back if he was going to. He only stood there and repeated the same sentence again and again. I stumbled into the next room where my father was still asleep on the couch and shut the door behind me.

"Dad, wake up! Wake up!" I shouted and pushed him around on the couch. He didn't respond. "Wake up!" I yelled one more time as Alphonse entered from the front door and shouted at me again. The other one exited my bedroom and approached me. I turned to face them and swung at one with the Ass-Beater. He shrugged it off, despite taking on the appearance of someone who had been beaten and battered.

My father began to stir behind me and I felt a sense of relief wash over. He stood up and put me in a big hug from behind me. Except it wasn't a hug. He was restraining me.

"You and your father don't belong here." my father, who had the face of the Overseer, roared at me as I struggled to free myself from his grasp. The other two approached me and repeated the same thing, each time becoming louder and louder as more entered from the front door. Each one looked as if they were one of the other vault residents, but with Alphonse's head.

Butch, Amata, Freddie, all of my classmates and every other vault dweller had begun to crowd my home. They were all yelling and repeating the same sentence in unison.

"You and you father don't belong here! You and your father don't belong here! You and your father don't belong here!" They repeated endlessly until they left my father out and said that only I didn't belong there.

I tried to cover my ears, only wanting a moment of relief, but my hands were held back.

"You don't belong here! You don't belong here!" they all yelled with enough combined volume to share the room.

I tried to yell back at them, but I couldn't, my mouth wouldn't open. Then, they just stopped, as if tired. I thought that I might have finally reached some sort of end to the madness, but they weren't done.

They all looked directly at me and screamed so loud that the windows in the room shattered and the earth itself felt like it had moved. "YOU MURDERED ME!"

My eyes flung open, and I was back in Josef's shack, on the floor. I was on the same, lumpy mattress (if you can call it that) that I had grown accustomed to in the wasteland. Dust particles hung lazily in the air around me, slightly illuminated by the sunrise that peeked through a slit between the wall boards.

"Shit," I whispered to self and placed my head in my hands. "What the heck is wrong with me? I didn't murder anyone, did I?" I thought as I tried to reassure myself that I hadn't entered into another nightmare. I had, of course, but the kind that you don't wake up from; the reality of the post-apocalyptic world.

I got to my feet and stretched and shook off the sleepy feeling. Josef wasn't in the shack but was probably nearby, so I went outside to find him.

"Hey, Josef?" I called out while I shielded my eyes from the bright morning sun. "You out here?"

There wasn't any response from Josef, who was lying on the ground a few feet from the shack door. A few empty bottles were on the ground next to him, and one was still in his hands.

"Aaaand he got drunk last night..." I muttered as I nudged him with my foot.

He only rolled over and groaned something unintelligible.

"C'mon, man, we don't have time for this." I nudged him, more of a kick, really, again.

Josef started to stir and try to sit up.

"Morning, sweetheart," I said sarcastically as a bewildered Josef looked around with squinted eyes. "Have a fun time?"

Josef coughed and beat on his chest. "Yeah, yeah." He finally replied groggily. "All that stuff yesterday got me keyed up. I needed to unwind a bit." Josef wobbled to his feet, and then made a face like he had just been punched in the gut and the forehead at the same time. "Man I met this girl last night, had some giant..." Josef paused for a second and I could practically hear the gears inside his head turning. "At least, I think it was a girl. Anyways, she had..."

"Whoa, whoa." I held my hand up and tried to silence him. "I don't need to hear about your adventures from last night." I looked to the front gate of Megaton. A few traders had gathered around, probably relaying tales from their recent travels. Ana was counting out caps from her hand to a man wearing a jumpsuit and carrying far too many guns for one person.

"Hey, you two!" Ana shouted to Josef, who had unsteadily reached a standing position, and I. "C'mere!"

"Shit, why's the sun got to be so damn bright?" Josef said as he stumbled forward. "C'mon man, we gotta..we gotta go over there.."

I watched as he wobbled forwards and continued to mumble to himself. I immediately began to wonder if he was going to be capable of traveling to Galaxy News Radio, but shrugged off the doubts and followed down the hill and stumbled almost as much as Josef. I had become used to the uneven ground of the surface world, but I still had trouble maintaining my balance every now and then.

I guess from an onlooker, Josef and I both must have looked hungover.

"Morning, fellas!" Ana greeted us cheerily then glanced at Josef then back to me. "I thought you two might want to do a bit of shopping before we head out. Lucky will give you a good deal." She explained as she nodded towards the man next to her with all of the guns.

He exhaled a ring of smoke and threw a cigar to the ground. "Greetings, my fellow travelers," Lucky said as he stamped the smoldering cigar into the ground. "I hear that you're planning an expedition into the D.C. ruins, correct?" He asked, and rubbed his palms together. "That's a mighty dangerous place, but the danger can be...neutralized, should you have the correct means."

"And that's where you come in?" I added.

"Correct, my underground dwelling friend." Lucky agreed and reached into a small pocket on the chest of his dingy, yellow jumpsuit. "Ana here is one of my regulars, makes me a good bit of business, so once she explained to me the situation, I decided that I would assist your trio."

My face lit up as I began to believe that he was going to join us for our adventure. We could've always used his amount of guns, and him as well. He knew how to use each one skillfully, no doubt.

"But make no mistake," he began, "I do not run a charity. I am a businessman and I must take care of my business. I am going to give you a discount on ammunition today, and only today, but everything else is full price, got it."

"Yes, sir," I said as a bit of my excitement drained. Ammo was nice, but another body and lots of guns were better.

"Oh shit!" Josef exclaimed as he began searching through the caravaneer's supply. "Where the hell did you find this?" He said as he pulled a blocky shaped gun and shook it around in the air. I honestly believed it was just a toy, but Josef seemed much more excited than that.

"Yeah, Harith, where'd you find that?" Ana seemed genuinely interested as well.

"Up north." He responded uninterestingly. "It was lying around next to some poor fella that was more of a goo than a guy."

"What do you mean by goo?" I asked as I had trouble visualizing what he meant. Josef continued to inspect the small pistol, seemingly in disbelief that he was holding one in his hands.

"Green. Sticky. Hot and plasma. Something you don't want to see happen in person." Harith nudged his hat with the tip of his thumb and looked upwards a bit. "I can't imagine how anyone gets ahold of plasma weapons. It's damn hard enough to find a stinkin' laser pistol let alone one of them."

Memories of futuristic comic heroes flooded my mind at the word laser. "You mean that brick shoots lasers?" I asked incredulously and pointed at Josef's hand.

"Yeah, Paul. Beams of light that'll burn a hole in you. Tons of fun, trust me." Josef said as he began to look through Lucky Harith's carefully labeled stores of ammunition. "I haven't been able to use one of these, well, except for one time. A couple of guys I," Josef opened up a box, labeled with tape that read "E. Cells" and dug out a few, "A couple of fellas I used to run with. One of the guys had one." He held a small battery like object in his hand, then pressed it into a compartment on the side of the laser. "He let me try it out once. It has a kick to it like a normal gun with bullets, rounds, y'know the usual stuff, but with the added flash of light and heated air."

"And badassery," Ana added. "It's hard to beat lasers flying around in the air. It's pretty cool."

I nodded in agreement, mostly because my mind was too busy working something else out to focus long enough for a response. Lucky Harith was a quite the collector, that's for sure, in both weapons and junk. In the wasteland, you had to hang on to whatever you could, since almost anyone can find a use for anything. My gaze was caught on a length of barbed-wire amongst the pile of junk.

"Hey, Harith. How much for the wire?" I asked and pulled the spiky cord to its full length. It was around a couple of feet long, and I already had an idea for it.

"Hmm..." Harith pondered. "Five caps."

I smirked at my misfortune. I only had three left over since we never got paid at Tenpenny Tower. "How about three?" I asked, doubtful of the man's desire to lower the price.

Harith stood in silence for a few moments. "Four."

I shook my head. "Three," I emphasized.

"No, four." he stated.

"Three."

Harith tried to maintain his stance, but he sighed and conceded defeat. "Fine, three caps."

I handed the jingling bottle caps over, took the barbed wire. The sharp points pricked my fingers quite easily, so I knew I had made a good buy. The Ass-Beater had become painfully ineffective in such a short time. It lacked the intimidation factor it once had, so I thought that wrapping it in the spiky wire would boost it back to its previous state. I held the newly spiked bat in the air like a mighty blade. "What do you two think?"

"Jesus, Paul," Ana said to herself. "That's raider level shit right there."

"Good or bad thing?" I asked readying myself as if I were about to hit a home run.

Ana glanced at the barbed wire on the bat. "Which one keeps that thing away from me?"

"I'd hate to be caught on the end of that," Josef admitted.

I gave the bat a few more swings and then pointed it forward. "I'd hate for just about anyone to get caught on the end of it," I said to myself.

Josef, Ana and I prepared to depart from Megaton soon after we purchased the necessary supplies. We didn't have much food, but Josef was positive that we could always scavenge for more if the need should arise. Billy Creel met us at the gates just as we began to leave and offered a bit more advice. He insisted that we should only travel during the day, and never, ever go outside during the night. He spoke of the ruins with such reverence, almost as if he were choking back bad memories of the place, but still wanting to tell us exactly what we were in for.

"By the way, you three," he reached out and put one hand on my shoulder, "If you see anyone, anything that looks likes big, green, burly fella, you stay the hell away from him, okay. Don't you take a single shot at him not even one." he emphasized. "Don't make any noise, and fuck's sake doesn't you dare hit him with that baseball bat of yours." Creel looked squarely at Josef. "I don't think I need to tell you twice, you know exactly what I'm talking about."

Josef nodded in agreement, but neither explained what was so serious.

It began to unsettle me a bit. Had I really been too hasty? The D.C. ruins were much different than the wide open countryside, so fighting was absolutely going to be different should we run into any trouble. Not only that but what would I be facing? I shook my head and try to calm myself down. My heart had already begun to race and I didn't need to worry myself over things that may or may not happen.

"Well." I straightened up my backpack and marched off in the direction of the metro station, dust sent into the wind with each stride. "I guess we had better get going."

The trip to the metro station was just a constant reminder to me that the roads we walked on were once bustling with vehicles that held shouting drivers in a hurry. Now they were fragmented, concrete strings in an ancient spider web, littered with remains of victims' centuries old. I could only imagine what rush hour must've looked like on some of the highways and overpasses that marked the horizon.

"So, uh." Ana began as she sped up to match Josef's brisk pace. "You want to tell me what Billy was talking about?" she asked as if she were unsure that the answer would to her liking.

"Not really, no," Josef said and didn't even slow down a bit. "Just hope that we don't have to find out."

I chimed in, as their secrecy had intrigued me as well. "Yeah, you two were acting like something bad was going on. What did he mean? Are we going to run into aliens or something?"

"Not exactly, but that would be pretty cool." Josef stopped and looked across the bridge we had arrived at and looked to me for directions.

I pulled up the map on my Pip-boy and looked at the marker I had placed. We were decently close to the metro station. "Yeah, it's this way," I said as I started across the bridge.

"Billy and I were just reminding each other of the dangers that live in that ruins. I don't think we need to worry about it, but in case we do, you two just follow my lead."

"So not aliens?" Ana asked, pretending to be disappointed.

"They might as well be," Josef replied as he hopped over a broken portion of the bridge and sent a few pieces falling into the irradiated water below. Something about the way he said that only increased the tension, instead of relieving it.

A partially collapsed over passed was ahead of us, its great shadow enveloping us already. Underneath it, a few people, raiders, loitered. They sounded as if they were having a great time.

We were about to put an end to it, sadly.

Josef and Ana huddled together behind some rubble, while I worked my way a bit closer.

"The fucker had finally lost it." One of the raiders proclaimed loudly. "First he runs inside screaming about somebody following him, then he starts trying to tell us that all the blood on him was from the other guy's heads just exploding."

I moved behind another pile of rubble and sat until he began to speak again. The other two raiders offered their half-hearted responses and the main one continued.

"So we try to get the real answers out of him. Y'know, figure out if he sold us out or something. Then shit gets really fucking weird."

I readied my baseball bat, almost sad I couldn't wait for the entire story to be told.

"He starts looking around and covering his head and screaming some crazy shit like," the raider shifted his voice to a higher pitch, "Death is after me, man! He's after me!" then coughed a bit as the other two laughed. "Like, like death is a fucking person or something! Like some motherfucker out there calls himself death! I swear we got to start interviewing these guys or-"

I leaped out from behind the rubble and was on the raider before he even knew what was going on. I let out a scream like something out of their nightmares and rushed at him. The man was cut short by the newly spiked Ass-Beater. The barbed wire tore the skin on the back of his neck and head and sent him straight to the ground.

"The fuck is-" the girl raider exclaimed in fear as a shot rang out. She dropped down as well. One was left, but he was too freaked out to react.

"What the? Who are you?" He said as I advanced towards him and he stumbled back.

"Death is after you! And I have found you!" I shouted as loud as possible and charged at him.

The raider screamed and kicked up dirt and rocks as he ran for his life. I continued to shout at him as another shot popped and put all his fears, and him, to rest.

Josef, who had been rubbing his head after the gunshots, his head still ringing, and Ana stood up from their spots behind the rubble and approached me.

"What the heck was that all about?" Ana said, giggling slightly.

"Well, one of their guys went crazy or something and said that death was after him. They probably were afraid that he was right, so I capitalized on that fear and used that against them." I explained proudly. "But I don't have to tell you that I'm still as scared of them as they are, well, were, of me." I pushed my hair back and took a deep breath. "Maybe we could've just went around them?" I pondered out loud.

"Maybe, maybe not, but I would've hated to have them follow us to the ruins and corner us there," Ana replied. "Sometimes these guys are persistent."

I listened to her while I looked at the map once again. I motioned with my hand to follow and continued up the road. The metro station was only a short walk away, so we arrived at it about fifteen minutes later. The entrance was in the middle of some parking lot. A river was off to one side, and a building that was falling apart was perched on the other side of that. I tried to get a good look at what was around the building. Ominous, red, metal spikes were assorted around in a wall like fashion, but I couldn't imagine why. Smoke lifted into the sky from behind the walled-in area, like something was living there. I could smell it easily, and no doubt Josef and Ana could as well.

I wasn't sure at the time if the smell should worry me because smoke in the wasteland smells different than the mechanical fires that plagued Vault 101, but since my friends weren't worried, I would not be either.

I walked down the concrete stairs to the gate, which was chained and locked, holding back the darkness below.

"This gate is so old, by the look of it," I said to myself as Josef and Ana kept a lookout at the top of the stairs. "It's like this chain as put on here recently." The gate was aged, rusted, but the chain on it was still somewhat new. I began to fiddle with it, but a lock prevented me from making any headway.

"What's the problem down there?" Josef asked and descended the stairs behind me.

I sighed in exasperation. "The gates locked."

"Shit," he said to himself. Josef crossed his arms and paced back and forth. "Maybe we could blast it off? Do we have any grenades or anything?" he asked after a few moments.

I took my bag off and set it on the ground. Nothing. There were no grenades in my bag, and perhaps for the better since it would've only been trouble later. "Nope, I don't have any."

"Here, move out of the way," Ana said as she brushed past me. She reached into her pocket and pulled a pin from it. Ana knelt down and tilted the lock up a bit, enough to get some light on it and see what she was doing.

"Oh-ho!" Josef exclaimed. "So we're going in all sneaky like?"

Ana didn't say anything back. She was focused on the lock in front of her, and nothing else. I could hear a small clicking whenever she would move the bobby pin around. She was careful, only pushing and turning the pin slowly and never with much force.

A much louder click came from the lock and it dropped off the chain onto the ground. Ana's face lit up and she pumped her fist in victory. "Got it!" she said as she jumped back up. "You're welcome," Ana replied to no one, then pushed the gates open.

"Talented. I like that." Josef said as he went into the tunnel.

"I, uh, I don't know about talented, but I'd say I'm pretty skilled." she retorted as we shut the gate behind us and entered the darkness of the metro tunnels.

There was no way of knowing what would await us underground. The wasteland was already horrifying above ground, and it could only get worse as we went deeper below it.