12 September 2277: Vault 92
It took us most of the rest of the day to sidle around what Haines described as a farm, but was now a raider hangout, before we reached the general location of the entrance to Vault 92.
Vault 101's entrance, according to its most recent emigrant, had faced the nearest township, so Vault 92's should and did do the same thing. At the bottom of a suspiciously flat-bottomed gully, west of a fairly intact cluster of buildings ringed by improvised walls and fences, there was a gate of wire mesh and old wood.
While Haines coaxed the door into moving, I kept watch, and that's when I saw it in the distance. A horror that seemed to be part daedroth, part hunger, with long arms ending in hands sporting huge claws. The horns over the beast's face were fairly superfluous, if you asked me.
It was exactly the same shape as the things that had been sniffing around our shelter back at Greener Pastures.
Nevertheless, I nocked an arrow ready to shoot if the abomination came our way. Then I came to my senses, put the bow away and drew out my old staff. That thing had the reach on us, but long arms are useless when you're paralysed. Also, I'd be more or less shooting out of the late afternoon sun. The only problems I could see were that I'd no idea how tough its hide was, and the pulse of my staff was fairly short-lived. Foolishly, I hadn't thought to soul trap some of those dogs we ran into earlier in case the bloody staff ran dry.
A creak behind me signalled Haines' success in door-unjamming, and I followed him through, pushing the gate closed. He looked about to ask a question, but I shook my head and gestured that we should head further in. After all, I had no idea how good its hearing was and with claws like that I wasn't interested in finding out.
The tunnel dipped a bit before the entrance, which was exactly the same as the example in the Museum of Technology. "What the hell?" was Haines' response as he looked at it.
"Something wrong?" is my intelligent response.
"Well, the door's open for a start," Haines replies, "It's supposed to remain closed."
That made sense. Also the chamber beyond was clearly rusted and unmaintained. A collection of bones had been scattered by something looking for a feed, judging by the marks on them.
"These don't look like teeth marks," says I inspecting them, "Not from anything I recognise."
They'd been picked over pretty well. There wasn't enough to get a dose of bonemeal out of.
"As long as we spot them first," Haines mutters, then goes creeping over to the door, resting his hand on a box which I guess was the door control. "Ready?"
So I stow the staff and pull out my bow – nice and quiet. "Ready," says I.
Turns out the box was indeed the door control, and up it goes, revealing more rust and a sort of wet fishy smell.
It took a while for the great Ra'jirra nose to place it. "Mirelurks," was my intelligent surmise.
"That tears it," Haines replies, "Something's happened to this Vault. We should look for survivors."
-o-o-o-o-
After we emerged the next day, we travelled in silence and at speed, retracing our steps to and past Minefield. We didn't talk. Neither of us wanted to. From Minefield we put the sun above our right ears as I followed Haines to a rocky outcrop from which peered a metal tower.
Haines circled around the north side and then led me across a bridge. Seems there was a little hollow in the outcrop and someone smart had set up home here.
So there's me looking around, and there's Haines trying to hide that big heavy case behind his back with one hand and knock with the other. He doesn't manage it, so he holds the case with both hands and knocks with one foot.
And then the door is opened by this sweet old lady. "Oh my goodness gracious!" says she, "Seems like you've been gone forever. Please tell me you have – oh my."
And she's gaping past Haines at me, obviously.
"Name's Ra'jirra," says I, "Pleased to meet you."
"Good news, Miss Agatha," says Haines and swings that case from behind his back, "We have found your violin."
And she actually staggers back and has to prop herself against the door frame to avoid falling, until she manages to breathe again.
"C-come inside," she gasps, "I have to see it... come inside! Please!"
Inside the shack was obviously neatly kept; bed in one corner, bathing and toilet in another, with a few screens for privacy. A desk held a radio and a stack of papers that seemed to be music sheets. "Put it here," says Agatha, nearly hysterical with excitement, "Oh Hilda... open it! Please, open it!"
And so Haines does, and the case cracks open again with a hiss of air.
The Soil Stradivarius looked like a talisman of the Nine, sitting there amidst the squalid interior of the shack. Its maple wood fair glowed with more than blazing varnish; I've seen a few fiddles in my time and this one would have been a god to their mortals.
"It's... more beautiful... than I ever imagined," Agatha breathes, then reverently picks it up and pauses. "Could you set that music there," she points with the bow at one particular sheet, "on the stand? The Gigue there."
So I pick up the sheet. "I really know it by heart now," she adds, "but... this is a Stradivarius, so just humour an old woman."
What can we do? I put the sheet on the stand and Agatha begins to play. And oh, what a sweet sound it was!
How many years had it lain there waiting for a trained hand to make it sing again? How long until its voice would join with others, in a new orchestra rising from the ashes around us?
Sorry. Got carried away there.
When Agatha finally and reluctantly came to the end of the piece, her face was radiant enough without our applause. Then I see she's almost weeping.
"I..." she has to stop herself from bursting into tears, "I can't thank you enough. I wish I had something to give you, a more suitable reward for all your efforts."
"Miss Agatha," says Haines, "I don't think there's anything left that could repay us."
"Watch it sassy-pants," snorts Agatha menacing him with the bow, "Seriously, all I can give you is the frequency to my radio set. Tune in whenever you feel like listening to the strains of an old woman's violin playing."
And she reels off a number which Haines plugs into the old Pip-Boy there. "I'm curious," she asks then, "Hilda loved the Soil, and she would have passed it on to... How did you convince her descendants to part with it?"
And we just look at each other.
-o-o-o-o-
When we had emerged from Vault 92 that morning, we were tired, bloody, silent and sombre. I was weeping.
And not just because of the choking stench of rot, rust, strange Dwemer-like stinks, and the omnipresent mirelurks. There were no survivors. Vault 92 was a necropolis.
Perhaps some of them managed to make it to the entrance and get the door open with their dying breaths. We found a note suggesting some had tried. Maybe some managed to reach the surface – and something probably ate them.
But they had all entered the Vault expecting sanctuary.
They were betrayed.
We trekked through the Vault, all of it. We shot bullets, arrows, spells at mirelurks. We discovered that the White Noise system killed them, which made things a lot easier. It also reduced wear and tear on my armour and mace.
I remember a strange creature, half-man, half-mirelurk, whose screams rang in your head long after you smashed its skull in.
I remember Haines staring at an almost illegible cry for help on a terminal, whispering, then shouting, then screaming, "What did they do!?" over and over.
I remember Haines finally working it out and just bashing the wall, screaming, "Those bastards, those stupid fucking bastards," over and over.
The notes are transcribed off Haines' Pip-Boy now. They tell a tragic story.
Zoe the innocent musician, overjoyed to be able to spend all her time playing the orchestral pieces she loved. Zoe the victim, realising too late what those bastards were doing to her and the other inhabitants.
Professor Malleus, doing research on using sound to implant suggestions into people's minds. Just subtle things at first, impulses to scratch their heads or fuss with their hair.
He didn't know, as far as we can tell, about White Noise Mind Suggestion Combat Experimentation
Overseer Rubin did though. The stupid swine tampered with the experiments to subject everyone to them – as per orders. Orders any sane man would have recognised as evil and refused to obey.
Overseer Rubin, too loyal and too stupid to realise his mistake until too late.
A mind is not one of those computers to be simply instructed on the whims of evil bastards who would give the Ayleids a run for their money. The suggestions worked all right – too well. If they wanted berserkers, they could've waited for us to come along and provide Orsinium's finest.
Instead, they threw away the skills and talents of gentle musicians. The knowledge of how to play Haydn or Dvorak – gone. All so they could see if you could mess up people's minds that they became fearless warriors.
That's what gets me, even now. It was the first real indication we had that the Vault programme wasn't as philanthropic as Haines and I thought. It wouldn't be until we found Haines senior that those suspicions would be confirmed.
-o-o-o-o-
We hurried back to Springvale and Haines' house in the setting sun. I slumped on the couch in the front room while Haines went down to the basement, returned with some tools, and threw on the radio before applying said tools to its front.
"...a child, growing up in rural Kentucky," President Eden lied, "I had the best friend a boy could hope for - my dear old dog, Honey. Oh, the adventures we had! From Knob Creek to Hodgzzsss..."
President Eden's cloying voice drizzled away. I tensed as hissing replaced it. Haines entering in a code. Speakers adding a loud hiss to the sounds of the dying Vault. A mirelurk bursting in its shell, ooze squeezing out of the joints...
The sad strains of a violin drowned out the hiss, making me want to weep again. We'd obviously tuned into the end of the piece, for it came to a mournful ending before Agatha spoke.
"That piece was for the fallen musicians of Vault 92," says she, "and my great-great-grandmother Hilda. Their voices have... fallen silent... until now."
And Haines gets up and takes his tools away and comes back with two bottles of booze.
"If my notes sound sweeter it's all thanks to two special someones who helped out a poor old lady living alone in the Wasteland. Thank you, Doctor Haines and, ah, Ra'jirra."
The tune this time was light-hearted, a sprightly revel that helped buoy our moods as we took a much-needed voyage to the bottom of the bottle.
There was a survivor of Vault 92 after all.