18 Rain's Hand 3E445: A Rest Stop on the Road to Rivet City

One of the troops lit the fire in the usual way, while Haines Senior watched in amazement. I don't know why, he'd been travelling with us for the past two days, so there were a few fireballs to ogle between then and now.

"So, now we're back in civilisation again," says I, picking some good Cyrodiil chicken out of my teeth, "What the hells was all that down in the Vault?"

The previous two days before reaching Vault 112 are only interesting to the terminally boring types, since it was almost all creeping and exploring westward. We did find a place called Jury Street, which must have been a merchant's street if the remaining buildings were any indication, and about this time Ernie got distracted by a nearby radio signal. All it was, once he found where it was being transmitted from, was a lot of little blips, which Ernie told me was something called 'Mores Code'. Turns out there was a hidden underground bunker, but raiders had visited before we got there, so no survivors and a Daedric sense of decoration.

We also spotted one of those behemoths nearby, and decided to steer clear. Also steered clear of was some sort of industrial complex – yep, I was beginning to recognise the building style – down in a deep gorge, like a natural fortress. As we lay on the edge that night, peering through goggles and the Eye, we worked out that if Haines Senior was as smart as his son reckoned he was, he would have steered clear.

Besides, they'd corralled yet another behemoth in some sort of pen with shock magic running through it. (Haines calls shock magicka 'electricity', but same thing.) Anyone with the ability to pull that off was worth giving plenty of space.

We finally reached Smith Casey's garage – a sort of mechanical stable and smithy, where you got your car repaired – the following morning, and didn't have to go far to find the entrance. Inside, however, we found just robobrains, and the only people were all inside some sort of machine. Including Ernie's father (his crying out and hysterical attempts to open the capsule-coffin-thing were a big give-away) and, apparently, Braun.

Naturally we had to describe all this once we returned to Fort Big Town, for the records.

"Well, Ra...jirra," the silvered man started, "Braun had set up the Vault to support a network of Tranquillity Loungers, including himself. Everyone in the Vault would enjoy a variety of simulated environments, ah, under the control of the Overseer, in this case Braun."

From what I had seen through the glass, they'd been in there so long they were little more than skin and bone, barely breathing, eyes fixed on screens that flickered disorientingly. Rods protruded from the corners and held their skulls still, while cables and tubes plugged into their now baggy jumpsuits.

"So you had to park yourself in one of them to get to him," surmises I, "You had to share his dream world."

"More like a nightmare," he shook his head, "I wasn't expecting to become a dog." He shuddered. "Miss Dithers knew, somehow. She'd pet me and feed me treats and whisper that she knew it was all wrong, that I needed to find the way out. And not just to avoid being fed poisoned scraps by Braun, or getting–"

He broke off and shuddered.

"I read the logs on the terminal there," says Ernie, "Before, he had been running a tropical island simulation, complete with deaths by shark, heatstroke, thirst and so forth. Then there was a ski resort with all sorts of horrible accidents. The bastard was torturing those poor people, over and over, wiping their memories and starting all over again when he got bored."

"And what was he, ah, 'running' when we arrived?" asks I.

"Tranquillity Lane," says the Senior, "good ol' American suburbia, white picket fences and all."

"Which made it all the sweeter for the sicko when he pulled the rug out from under," adds Ernie, "Did you see the road was just a circle with no way out?"

"Try telling that to those poor souls," replies the Senior, "Once I saw the Neubaum family all pile into their car talking about going to the Smithsonian. They just sat there, ignoring everything and everyone else ignoring them, and guess who was stealing items and putting them in another house?"

"Like a dream within a dream," muses I. "Keep that stuff away from Sheogorath, it sounds right up his alley. Anyway, why did all the warning bells go off and everyone die?"

"When I entered," explains Ernie, "I realised something was wrong after a couple of circuits. Like Dad said, just one big circle and no exits. Also, there was a house with no name on the mailbox. Inside, a pile of junk which was a basic sequence lock. Obviously," and his voice became a little snooty, "imperceptible to the Vault inhabitants. I had a rifle through the files on the terminal and activated the failsafe, which was tied to a 'Chinese Invasion' simulation program.

"Now, normally the Tranquillity Loungers have safety mechanisms to prevent neural damage, but Braun had them removed when the failsafe went off. Apparently he didn't want anyone escaping. Simply put, if you got shot by virtual Chinks, you'd get your brains fried, fatally... unless you're the Overseer."

That had been hideous. After hours of waiting, pestered by fawning robots apologising for 'my' broken lounger, a bedlam of alarms, the smell of death-purged bowels, the final rattles and whimpers.

"So how come you two got out?" asks I.

"We weren't all hooked up," explains Haines, "We didn't have eye-vees or electrodes or any of that stuff in their jumpsuits. If you'll look at them, they're actually straight military-grade virtual reality immersion suits."

"Which of course explains why you both got out and started shouting at each other," says I.

The two looked a little shame-faced, but then self-righteous.

"And you," I pointed at the elder before they could start again, "tried to hare off without kitting yourself properly." Technically his 'armour' was just a motor-cycle riding outfit with extra bits of metal tacked on, but it was safer than running around in just a Vault-Tec jumpsuit. Especially since there was yet another Talon ambush as soon as we emerged outside. How by the Nine did they keep tracking us?

James Haines, it seemed, was yet another bit-in-the-teeth sort. It was only by some magical persuasion that he deigned to stay with us as we backtracked to Fort Big Town. He was fascinated by my basic spellcraft (almost being hit by it might have helped) and he asked plenty of questions on the way back.

"It also explains why everything was in black and white," Ernie tried to change the subject.

"Look," Haines Senior begins the argument again, "It wasn't as if I had any choice. I would vanish in the night cycle, and you were supposed to stay safe in the Vault. I know –"

"Those bastards had already decided I was in on it!" yells Ernie, "Hell, they shot Jonas – or that prick Mack did anyway. He was questioning Amata and... I saw him..."

And Haines shudders. "Her father was just watching," he adds.

"Good God," mutters the elder, "Jonas? His own daughter?"

"C'mon Dad, you know he was a stick-in-the-butt type. I remember him saying over and over again how your experiments were a waste of time. And remember when I told you about the last question in the GOAT? Four options and only one real answer. 'Who is the man who is like unto God on Earth, to whom we owe unquestioning obedience and whose ass emits rays of sunshine?'" He was being sarcastic. "'The Overseer. The Overseer. The Overseer. The Overseer.'"

And something clicks into place. "Wait a minute," says I, "Is Braun still alive? If he's the Overseer, and he couldn't disable his own neural safety thingies..."

And both Haines look at me and then nod. "He's trapped in there," Ernie confirms, "along with all those homicidal simulated Chinese."

"In the body of a little girl," adds his father. "I don't know if I should feel sorry for him or not..."

I didn't. So far every Vault's Overseer that I'd heard of had turned out to be a tyrant, which worried me a lot. And at least three of them had effectively destroyed their Vaults, if not immediately then by sowing the seeds for later demise – as per their orders. Vault 101's Overseer was apparently a bit of a tyrant as well, but...

"So what sort of experiments were performed on the people in Vault 101?" asks I.

"None," says the elder, "Well actually... it wasn't supposed to open ever. The idea was to study the genetic impact of a small group of individuals breeding over multiple generations."

I could see a problem with that. You had a population that was unaware of what was going on outside, and a lot can happen in a thousand years. The Third Empire basically rose and fell in that time, Nine help us all!

Now, in a thousand years it was more than likely that the Vault would be discovered by someone or something from the outside, and probably be opened by force. Which, if things had gone differently, would have probably revealed a decaying, inbred population resembling Skyrim's falmer more than men.

"But obviously it did open," observes I simply.

"Well, no," agrees the elder Haines, "At first Amaldovar wanted to just throw us out again, preferably with a bullet in the head, but fortunately more sympathetic ones prevailed."

It took me a space to recognise that Vault 101's Overseer was called Amaldovar. And if he'd have been happy to shoot a father and infant, well, that settled the tyrant question. He was. Must have been required in the job description.

"Fortunately for you," says I, "So no doubt he made you useful, Ernie here got a safe place to grow up, and then off you snuck."

"Well, yes," and the elder Haines looks a little offended. "Mostly wondering why the population was declining, which is all down to the obvious lack of genetic diversity – inbreeding that is, among other things – but I still tried to learn as much as possible to get Project Purity back up and running. In between being grilled about what life was like outside, that is."

"Why would they care? If the place was supposed to stay shut forever..."

"The previous Overseer," explains Ernie, "was more open to contact with the outside world. He sent people out to investigate."

"And that's partly how we knew of Vault 101," adds his father, "not to mention the two escapees in '66 and '68. You wouldn't remember those."

"Well, there was one I know of because Moira gave me her jumpsuit," says Ernie. "I've only worn it once, Moira's not that good a tailor."

"Well," burps I, "All that we need now is a little constitutional to settle our guts and then a nice night's sleep. Coming?"

And the Haines family look a little confused as I didn't intone it as a request.

It was cold outside, but then it is at any time of year. Masser and Secunda grinned down at us while Earnest and James Haines gaped back.

"You said you came from another world," gasps Ernie, "but I didn't realise it was true..."

"Yep," grins I, "obviously. We'll take a quick walk around Black Plateau, hit the hay, then it's back through the portal to Rivet City when we're nice and refreshed."