Chapter 11 – Waking up and Vault Lockdown

I was walking down the city street, on the pavements were crowds of friendly people, and numerous cars drove past on the road. I glanced at my reflection in a shop window; I looked great in my shirt and jacket, and my recently-cut short brown hair, though I clearly could do with losing a few pounds – OK, several pounds of weight.

There was sudden shift, and I noticed that people were starting to stare at me strangely, in an almost hostile fashion, I glanced down at myself to try and see what could be the problem, and saw that I was no longer wearing my jacket, but instead wore a blue boiler suit, No, a blue Vault-suit.

As I stared down, something moved across my line of vision, I grabbed it and looked at it more closely, it was hair, RED hair, LONG, RED HAIR!

I turned quickly to my left, and stared at my reflection in the nearest shop window, and saw that I was not looking at a reflection of my own face, but the reflection of Jenny Saunders.

I gazed frozen my image in the window, and then there was a bright flash behind me, that reflected off the glass, and blinded me for a few minutes.

As my vision slowly returned, I saw that my reflection had gone, as had most of the shop window. I spun round, and was met with the sight of utter devastation: Blackened and broken buildings lay in every direction, Burnt out cars and other vehicles were scattered along the streets, The crowds of people had vanished, and for the most part replaced with their shattered remains, the reminder seemed to a mixture of Feral Ghouls, towering Super Mutants, and cackling Raiders, all of whom had seen me, and were charging towards me.

I couldn't move; I was frozen to the spot. My closest attacker – a leering half-nude Raider swung his knife above his head, and plunged it deep into my arm.

I woke with a jerk, and a scream, and found myself staring wildly into the anxious face of Sarah-Jane, as she quickly put down an empty hypodermic syringe, and picked up another.

"Jenny!" She asked, her voice full of concerned, and with her hand tensed, ready to plunge the syringe needle into me at moment's notice "Jenny!, How are you feeling? Are you OK?"

I slumped back, and stared up at the gleaming white ceiling, with the smell of antiseptic in the air, I took a deep breath of relief to be free of that terrible dream; a gasp that instantly turned into a GASP OF PAIN.

My chest felt like it had been caved in... No, more than that, as my brain started getting reports from all over my body: my breasts felt like they had been crushed in a vice and the whole front of my body felt like it had been used as punch-bag.

I instinctively tried to move my right hand up to assess the damage, but found that it was strapped down, so was my left hand, and then with rising panic I rapidly discovered that my legs, and even my chest was securely fastened to the bed.

"What the Hell is going on? I feel like I've been hit by a truck, and why am I strapped down?"

"Excellent, that's wonderful", she shouted, and started dancing around the room.

"It doesn't feel that good from here" I complained.

"Sorry!" she replied unabashed, and started undo my straps, explaining as she went "but it is the first time in 3 days that you haven't tried to kill me. I was beginning to think that the damage was permanent."

"What damage?" I worriedly interrupted "And why do I feel so sore?"

"From the gas!" came her reply "You inhaled a near toxic level of that psycho-gas, if it had been only a fraction more; you would have been permanently insane. As it is, it has taken over three days, and a lot of this old de-tox, just to get the worst of it out of your system."

"And my aches and pains" I encouraged

"Well, I have treated the four bullet holes, and several deep cuts and gashes that you had, plus you had cracked a bone in your wrist, which I did by using a combination of bandages and Stimpacks" Sarah continued "But Stimpacks don't work on bruises"

"Something else that the game neglected to highlight" I muttered

"Pardon?"

"Nothing, go on"

"Oh right" said Sarah-Jane "any way, you got a lot of bruises while you were out and about, and the way that you hit that wall when I disabled you, did you no favours"

As she helped me to painfully sit up, I saw my reflection in a mirror, and she wasn't kidding; the whole front of my body was one solid bruise, from my feet, right up to a pair of beautiful black eyes, it was amazing that I could even feel like moving at all.

"Just what on Earth did you hit me with?" I inquired.

"Well, after you left, I finished up cleaning the clinic, and I found a couple of spray cans, and some of Dr Jones's notes. He had been trying to work out a way of treating those who had been exposed to the psycho-gas, but obviously most of his patients didn't appreciate his help, so he made up some sprays that contained a mixture of his de-tox, and what he called a instant 'Mickey Finn', fortunately there was still some left in the cans, so I kept it handy, in case you ran into problems".

As she told me this, I gazed round the clinic, and was astounded; the room literally gleamed, and looked pristine. I would have bet serious money, that it had never looked this good, even when it had been brand-new, and I told her so.

Sarah-Jane blushed red with embarrassment at the compliment, and in an attempt to brush it aside, said that after her GOAT exam on my computer which had confirmed her officially as the Vault Doctor, that she decided that she simply wanted HER clinic to look as good, as the ones shown in all the medical books she had studied over the years. She concluded with the comment that she upload a list of jobs, for my attention of all the repairs that needed to be done, to make the place complete.

I promised that I would have a look at her list as soon as possible, but I needed to fix the Main Vault Door first.

"Why? What's wrong with it?" She asked puzzled

"It keeps letting people in" I replied "and after that last attack; I don't believe there is anyone else, other than the two of us left to defend the Vault. I have got to disable that door, until we are ready to open it again to visitors"

"Okay, but this time I'm coming with you, just in case" she responded

So, after carefully pulling on a clean Vault suit that she must have got from my room we headed back up the stairs. We paused briefly to pop into the Morgue to collect two of the fullest gas cylinders, as I wanted to leave a surprise for any unwanted visitors outside the Vault Door, if that was possible.

The atmosphere in the Atrium was foul, for while the psycho-gas had cleared, the stench of death filled the air, and the Radroaches who would have normally cleaned up, had not survived the aftermath of the battle.

I quickly collected a new assault rifle, and we searched the bodies for some ammo for it. We hit a small jackpot, as the Raider Hulk's body had a pair of frag-mines hooked on his belt. Then, after retrieving my tools, we moved onwards to the Vault Entrance.

Not surprisingly, the Vault Door was closed, so while Sarah placed the gas cylinders alongside the door, I started to work on the Door's control panel. I very quickly found that not only was the control panel incomplete, but that the controls for opening the door had been bypassed, and been wired to some other control system within the Vault.

As I tried to puzzle out what had been done, the hatch leading to the Atrium suddenly slammed shut and locked. This was quickly followed by a siren, and an orange beacon started flashing, as the Vault Door began to open behind me.

As Sarah-Jane dashed to the Atrium hatch, and desperately tried to open it, I tried to stop the opening cycle, but the system had been designed, so that when the door starts to open (or close for that matter), the control cycle must be completed before it can be reversed.

I crouched down, with my rifle at the ready, but once the door was fully open, it revealed no-one, just an empty tunnel, or rather one that was void of any living thing.

I crept forward to doorway, and peered into the tunnel, there was no-one there, no-one who could have opened the door, and in fact the external control panel looked in worse condition than the one on the inside. Up at the far end of the tunnel, I could see daylight streaming through the gaps in the door at the end, and worryingly I could hear voices and signs of movement beyond it.

Sarah was crouching at the foot of the hatchway, staring in terror at the open Vault Door; she was not going to be much help in defending the Vault. I dragged the two gas cylinders through the entrance and placed them part-way up the tunnel, with the two Frag-mines planted next to them. I then retreated back through the Vault Door.

My plan was: if the owners of the voices turned out to be friendly, I would warn them off, so that could disable my booby trap, but if they were hostile I was going to slam the door closed, and leave them to the gas.

The door at the end of the tunnel swung open, and four figures entered the tunnel. "Halt, and identify yourself" I shouted. Their response was a mixed volley of gun and laser fire, and the cry of "Forward Talon Company" confirmed my worst fears.

I gave a quick volley in reply, to slow them up by having to duck and take cover, and then I dived to the control panel, and hit the 'Close' button hard.

I then rolled back, and fired though the closing gap, to buy more time for the Door to close; it was very close, just before the door was fully closed, I heard the bang as the mines exploded, and there was a puff of gas around the edge of the door, before it sealed tight.

I then dashed to the nearby fuse-board, and pulled the fuses for the Door Mechanism, one thing for sure, I was determined that the Door wasn't going to open again until I said so; The Vault was in lockdown; Though I did quietly worry whether I had trapped us in here forever.

Suspiciously, now that the Vault Door was closed, the Hatch to the Atrium automatically unlocked, and opened.

I now turned to Sarah-Jane who was now starting to get over her panic attack, and exclaimed frustrated "How the hell, did they know that the Vault Door was open?"

"Probably from your robotic messenger" she suggested

"My what?"

"Your Messenger, the strange looking Eyebot, you know the 'Pied Piper' that you keep sending out every so often, inviting people to come into the Vault for safety"

I could feel a cold chill run down my spine. Vault 106 experiment had not ended almost 200 years ago, it was still ongoing