Yo, long time no see.
First things first, I want to apologize for disappearing for nearly 2 years with no updates. I don't really have much of an excuse, just mainly me not putting aside time to write and real-life stuff. It does warm my heart to see that so many people have followed and favorited this fic since my last chapter back in feb 2019.
As well as begging me to post the next chapter.
Thank you.
For the past two years I've been working on and off on chapter 11. This isn't the actual full chapter, just the introductory paragraph for Courier Six, which is roughly a little more than 4500 words.
I felt bad that I didn't hit my quota in finishing the original chapter 11 by New Years, and wanted to post something before January ended. Before I splinched it, Chapter 11 was about 80% done and had around 14000 words (not including author notes), so the newly minted Chapter 12 will drop sometime around late February-March as I'll probably add more to it now.
Going forward, there's a lot of overhauling I need to do for the story regarding the gamer stuff and mod content, but you can read all about that in the bottom author notes in the next chapter, not covering it in this chapter. This little blurb is just something intended to tide you all over and show you all I'm not dead while I finish up the big one.
It's been a while, so last where we left off was the SI getting an entire clip of a 10mm SMG emptied into his unprotected stomach, barely managing to make it out of Helios One alive before collapsing from blood loss, and a perspective switch to the Courier. This chapter will serve as her first proper introduction.
So, we have now officially reached the beginning of Fallout New Vegas proper. It may not be the full chapter and it took two years to get this out, but the wait is finally over! Huzzah!
(mini) Chapter 11 – Through the Looking Glass
It was…
Bright.
Too bright.
A twinge of pain crossed the woman's face as she groaned in discomfort, her eyelids trembling, threatening to seal themselves shut and never open again.
But try as she might, a sudden throb of an incoming headache allowed lucidity to establish a vice grip, a rude awakening signified by a spike of pain that ruined any chance of her drifting back to that dark chasm of unconsciousness that so lovingly beckoned to her.
Either she had died and passed on into the great beyond, or some asshole had shoved an overcharged energy cell into a flashlight and decided to point it at her general vicinity before it overloaded and combusted in a blaze of glory. It wouldn't have been the first time, either.
The woman sluggishly raised her hand and put it to her eyes attempting to block out the encroaching light, but to no avail. Rubbing the sleep that clung stubbornly to her eyes and blinking, colors slowly began to form into discernable objects and shapes as the world became solid and not a swirly mishmash of color and light.
A fan was spinning above her. Sunlight filtered into the room, but she couldn't tell whether it was morning or the afternoon. Judging by the soft fabric she felt on her skin, it was likely she was in some sort of bed. The stiffness in her limbs, dryness of her mouth, and the dull pounding headache seemed to suggest that she was still in the land of the living.
"You're awake. How about that." A blurry figure moved into her line of sight; their face obscured by the light overhead.
Startled by the unfamiliar surroundings and sudden intrusion of her personal space, the woman's self-preservation instincts honed by many a day and night spent in the dangerous wasteland kicked in as she jerked upwards slightly in panic, immediately throwing off the covers of the bed and hurrying to right herself upwards.
This was not a good idea.
Not anticipating the rush of nausea that hit her as she exerted herself more than someone in her condition should have, her muscles gave out as she fell out of the bed and nearly onto the floor head first. Luckily for her, wrinkled and calloused hands reached out to grab her, preventing her from cracking her head on the wood floor.
The owner of said hands grunted in exertion as they struggled slightly to shift her back onto the bed. "Woah, easy there. Easy. You've been out cold a couple of days now."
After a second or two of being wrangled into a more favorable position, the woman was now sitting on the bed hunched over with her feet touching the floor. Taking a moment to steady herself, the woman looked up and finally got to properly see the owner of the voice that had startled and promptly saved her from yet another grievous head injury.
It turned out to be a kindly looking elderly man sitting in a chair just opposite of the bed she was now sitting up in.
Looking at her surroundings, she realized she was in some sort of clinic. The old man gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and smiled at her. "Why don't you just relax a second? Get your bearings."
She stared at him. A million questions were running through her head, and she had no idea where to start. Licking her lips, she attempted to speak.
"I-I... where…am- ". Her sentence was cut off by a sudden coughing fit from a parched throat. Deciding that she wasn't going to be done in by a stiff breeze, the man let go of her shoulder and leaned back. Reaching behind him, he grabbed a bottle of water and offered it to her.
"Here. Your throat's probably dry after all that time spent bedridden." The doctor said.
The thought that he might have laced the water with something crossed her mind briefly, but ultimately her thirst and the fact she wasn't restrained reassured her that at the very least, the man wasn't an immediate threat to her person. If anything, it was likely he was her savior judging by all the medical tools and apparatuses she could see in the room.
Not that she was really in any state to defend herself anyway, with her head still feeling like a ball in a roulette wheel and her limbs feeling like they had steel weights attached to them.
Reaching out with both hands slightly shaking, she firmly grasped the bottle of water. The man had already unscrewed the cap off for her. Not trusting herself not to drop the damn thing, she quickly and clumsily put it to her lips and took greedy gulps of water.
When she finished, the doctor cleared his throat. "Now, let's see what the damage is. How about your name? Can you tell me your name?"
Of course. Her name was...
"H-hannah. Hannah Ainsbury."
The doctor rubbed his chin and let out a hum of contemplation.
"Huh. Can't say it's what I'd have picked for you. But if that's your name, that's your name."
Inwardly, she frowned. What's that supposed to mean?
The man raised his hand and gestured to himself. "I'm Doc Mitchell. Welcome to Goodsprings."
During his introduction, the doctor had proceeded to get up from his chair and made his way over to the desk behind him, starting to rummage through the drawers.
"Now, I hope you don't mind, but I had to go rooting around there in your noggin to pull all the bits of lead out." Hannah balked slightly as unpleasant fragments of her memory came back to her at Doc Mitchell's words.
She put a hand to her face as the memories of that awful night came rushing back.
Right. She… she had been doing courier work for the Mohave Express, delivering a package to New Vegas. Some sort of fancy poker chip, probably a novelty item for a casino mob boss now that she thought about it, when she had been ambushed by Great Khans and was promptly mugged. Then some jackass in a tacky suit had said some cryptic bullshit to her and shot her in the head.
…
She… had been shot in the head. And assuming this wasn't some vivid hallucination she was having while buried several feet under and slowly bleeding to death, she had lived.
Unaware of her inner turmoil, Mitchell's lips quirked upwards as he found whatever he had been looking for. Pulling a mirror out of the desk, he walked back over to Hannah and offered it to her. "I take pride in my needlework, but you'd better tell me if I left anything out of place."
Reaching a hand out, Hannah took the offered mirror. Taking a moment to psyche herself and mentally preparing herself for the worst, she looked into it.
The reflection that stared back at her was a woman with tanned skin and brown eyes. Her brown hair was short and messy, with freckles and a small scar on her lip adorning her face. Her hair was beginning to get long again, and she would need to cut it soon unless she wanted to deal with hair in her eyes.
Hannah brushed it out of the way with her hands, revealing not one, but two bullet scars that dotted her forehead. The woman took a moment to take it all in as she exhaled softly. She had been shot twice in the head, and lived.
Just what on earth were the statistical chances of that? One in a million? More? And here she had thought that her luck had finally run out. Hannah could see little surgical stitches all over the area around the two bullet scars, cementing the fact that Doc Mitchell hadn't been exaggerating in the slightest when he said he had been pulling bullet shrapnel out of her brain.
Hannah gulped. There had been a literal hole blown open in her head and Mitchell had managed to sew it up like nothing happened. That man was right to be proud of his needlework.
Doc Mitchell must've seen something amusing in her expression, because he chuckled.
"How'd I do?"
She cleared her throat. "It's… not as bad as I thought it would be. Much better. You… ah… you did a very good job." Hannah finished lamely, because really, how else were you supposed to respond to someone who managed to sew your forehead back together with mostly a needle and thread and manage to do it without disfiguring her face beyond recognition?
She sure as hell wasn't about to tell him that he could have done a better job.
Doc Mitchell let out a small smile at her awkward praise. "Well, I got most of it right, anyway. Stuff that mattered." Mitchell got out of his seat and walked over to Hannah, offering his hands. "Okay. No sense keeping you in bed anymore. Let's see if we can get you on your feet."
Hannah reached out and clasped her hands with his, and Mitchell let out a small grunt as he pulled her up. It took a moment for Hannah to stop wobbling and find her sense of balance, but eventually, Mitchell deemed that she wasn't going to fall over the moment he let go and let her stand without any assistance.
Hannah took a moment to stretch out her arms, popping her joints as she tried to get the tension out of them.
"Ugh… so stiff…" Hannah grumbled as her shoulders protested slightly. Lying in bed for god knows how long had done a number on her back.
Finishing her stretching with a crack of her knuckles, she looked down at her current attire. Clad in nothing but a shirt and pair of underwear, one could clearly see her athletic physique gained from a lifestyle of walking long distances day and night. Now she wasn't body consciousness or squeamish (you got used to muck and grime really quick roughing out in the wastes) but it was kind of uncomfortable being so exposed in front of a complete stranger.
Well, maybe not stranger, as the doctor had spent who knows how long sewing up her brain. Still…
"Uh… doctor? Not to sound ungrateful, but is there anything I can wear?"
"My apologies, ma'am." Doc Mitchell pointed to a familiar duffle bag with a folded set of reinforced leather armor on top of it, laying at the foot of her bed. A hunting shotgun with a sling attacked to it was propped up against the wall next to the bag.
"When you were brought in here, I put everything you had on you into one pile at the foot of your bed. I'll be in the next room over, so come in when you're ready so we can finish your examination. You seem to be doing alright so far, but I'd rather be safe than sorry."
The doctor had a point. Hannah could remember who she was, where she was born, and things she had done in life- Hannah winced briefly as a particularly unpleasant memory surfaced- but having two bullets in her head might have done something not readily apparent that she would much rather find out now than at some inopportune moment.
"Alright. Will do."
Doc Mitchell gave her a small nod and left the room, leaving Hannah to her own devices. After acquiring a pair of jeans and slipping on a well-worn pair of leather boots she had long since broken in, Hannah did a look over the rest of her belongings. Hannah rubbed the back of her neck as she began the task of taking gaining her bearings.
"Let's see here…"
She gingerly picked up her old Remington, which she had used for most of her career as a courier. Hannah had found it in poor condition while salvaging in the ruins of an old prewar gun shop one day, and had painstakingly spent the next several months reading old gun magazines and paying out of pocket to various gun nuts learning how to maintain and repair it to working condition. And hoo boy, had it been worth it.
Hannah had gotten a lot of use out of that gun throughout the years, and in her opinion, there was nothing better to dissuade the wasteland nasties than a round of buckshot to the face!
Turning the shotgun over in her hands, she muttered "Looks alright…"
It looked like it was in okay condition, aside from the strap she used to sling it on her back, which was beginning to tear. She'd have to replace that soon, but other than that her gun seemed to have fared pretty well in the time it had spent away from her when she'd been jumped by those Khans.
"Surprised those fuckers didn't just take it…" Hannah grumbled. She wasn't really complaining, but who shot someone for dead and didn't bother to take anything of value?
Opening her duffle bag, Hannah dumped the contents onto the bed. She also rifled through the pockets of her clothes and armor, depositing whatever she found in them and strapping the armor pieces on when she was finished going through them. Once she was sure she had found everything, Hannah took a minute to take inventory of what she had on her person.
Said contents consisted of three stimpacks, a small bag of caps (237 in total), a shot of med-x, a half empty bottle of cateye, 2 cans of beans, a set of cutlery, a dried mutfruit, two hand grenades (pins still firmly in place), several pieces of paper, a pencil, several boxes of 12-gauge standard, and a sheathed combat knife she used for survival and utility purposes.
It wasn't much, but Hannah had always preferred to travel light. Everything seemed to be accounted for, with the only thing missing being the platinum chip.
She sighed. "Figures…"
Of course. Of all things it could have been, it was the one item she had been given to be delivered to New Vegas. If she remembered correctly, that jackass in the suit had been waving it around like some kind of trophy before he shot her in the head. It was kind of fuzzy, but she remembered having some sort of epiphany about the man before she got shot. Didn't she get some kind of warning from beforehand…?
Hannah reached for the bundle of papers laid out on the bed. One turned out to be the courier job details, but it was the other piece of paper she was after. She unfolded the note.
There, in messy handwriting, stood the warning she had ignored and proceeded to pay the price for.
The checkered raider lies in the Jewel of the Desert.
Careful. Your actions have consequences.
If you value your life, choose wisely.
Hannah let out a small unladylike snort before frowning. It was pretty tacky, but Hannah couldn't really judge it since she'd still gotten jumped despite the warning. The risks of courier jobs and her own arrogance had resulted in this current mess.
Moving people's crap across the wasteland always guaranteed thieves and whatnot trying to steal their cargo. Throughout her entire career as a courier, Hannah had gotten into and out of many sticky situations worse than a bunch of punks tracking her down, so why would've this time have been any different?
The note was crumpled slightly in her hands as she scowled. How could she have been so- so stupid!
Hannah had faced raiders, mutants, hordes of feral ghouls, and a deathclaw that one time, but she supposed being hunted down by Khans was a new one. Unlike your average raider, Khans actually knew what they were doing. They weren't close to a proper militarized force (what passed as a "new recruit" for the NCR these days in the Mojave was appalling) but their well known, extremely brutal initiation rituals and general hardiness put them a cut above most raiders in the wasteland at large. With how many people had been gunning for their heads for over two decades since their conception, the Khans had to be at the top of their game if they wanted to survive.
And then there was the matter of the guy in the suit. She reread the first line of the warning note. Her own observations and the fact that the note practically spelled it out for her, there was an almost one hundred percent certainty that guy was part of the casino gangs. Which made Hannah wonder just how big of a brahmin pat she had just stepped into.
In hindsight, she should have immediately turned the job down, regardless of the hefty sum it had offered for completion. 1000 caps weren't worth getting involved in casino gang politics again. Hannah had made that mistake once in Reno, and shame on her twice for making it again in the Mojave.
Why did everything that had the slightest hint of gambling involved always go wrong for her? And to think, she was now in a region well known for it.
"I'm never taking another casino related job again I swear. Every fucking time, it's always a huge mess..."
Coming to the Mohave had been a mistake… but it wasn't like she had anywhere else to go. Nothing good waiting for her back west, not after what happened with The Divi-
"Urgh…" Hannah briefly shuddered as the memories came crawling back and shook her head. "No, not thinking about that. Not again. No sense in agonizing myself over what could have been…"
Back… back to the topic at hand. The platinum chip.
It probably wasn't a novelty item like she originally thought it was, considering she'd been shot for it. What was it actually for?
Hannah remembered looking it over herself. Aside from being a very pretty piece of metal, it didn't look like anything special. Maybe it was made out of actual platinum? She tried to think back to the old days of school back west.
Platinum was supposed to be more valuable than gold, right?
"No… there's gotta be something more to it. Just what…"
Looking back on it, she had knowingly walked right into an ambush, despite being warned and she had... well she hadn't ignored the warning per say… but if she was being honest to herself, she probably hadn't taken it as seriously as she should have…
"Fuck."
Hannah put her face in her hands and groaned in frustration as she unsuccessfully wracked her brain for any possible explanation worth justifying her getting shot in the head for a shiny piece of metal. She couldn't think of anything except her poor choices. Hindsight was 20/20, it seemed.
At least she didn't go down without a fight. She'd managed to kill at least two of the Great Khans, plus a particularly vivid memory of kicking one of them in the balls before she'd been dogpiled by the rest. Didn't do much to make her feel better, but it was something.
Why had she ever taken that job? She couldn't remember. Whatever that reason was, she really hoped it wasn't for thrill seeking, she already got into enough trouble on a regular basis without actively looking for it. Hannah sighed as she massaged her brow and stated the obvious.
"I'm a moron."
Well, there was nothing she could really do about it now. She'd gotten complacent and paid the price. And gotten off very lightly, by the looks of it. Possible brain damage aside, the only thing she'd really suffered from her blunder were a few new scars and a heavy blow to her pride. And the platinum chip was gone, too.
Hannah was surprised that the Khans hadn't seemed to have taken anything else, especially her gun. One could get quite a fair bit of caps for a shotgun as well maintained as hers. And seeing as they left her for dead, Hannah doubted it was out of a sense of honor or anything that they didn't loot her belongings.
Hell, they didn't even take her caps.
Sure, Khans had their own traditions and rules, and tended to be a bit better cultured than most raiders, but that wasn't saying much. Like that old wasteland saying said, that while a golden radroach may look all nice and shiny, it's still vermin that no one wants to find crawling around in their home.
Guess their employer told them to leg it right after he shot me. That was probably why she survived, because there was only a certain window of time before she bled to death, and someone must have found her in that shallow grave. Unless her assaulters were kind enough to drop her off at the doctor after they shot her.
"Heh…" Hannah let out a snort of amusement at the thought.
The question was, what now?
Running would be the smart choice, and it wouldn't have been the first time Hannah ran from her problems. If this platinum chip was something big enough to involve the ruling families of Vegas, no way would she be left alone once her survival was discovered. The one who issued the platinum chip job would probably want answers from her as well.
But where too? Going further east was dangerous for her on account of Caesar's Legion, and she couldn't exactly go back west to New Reno, not with all those gangs wanting her head.
Hannah bit her lip in thought. "Utah, maybe?"
It had been a few years since she'd been down to New Canaan. That entire area was practically untamed wilderness and a shithole chock full of raider warlords and tribal cannibals, but New Canaan was well known for being accepting of helpful outsiders and were able to keep their area of the wasteland free of danger.
Wouldn't be much different from the occasional bounty and bodyguard jobs she'd taken in the past, only this would be a more permanent arrangement. The New Canaanites and friendly tribals wouldn't give her a second glance.
But… did she really want to run from her problems a third time in her life?
Running hadn't gotten her anything but broken promises and regrets so far.
Hannah scrunched the fabric of her bag with her hands.
What… if she tried to stand and face them for once? This was different from before. Someone had tried to warn her of the ambush, so a possible ally there, one who probably knew the political climate of New Vegas and could help her out of this mess if she found them and went alongside their goals. And Hannah would be lying if she didn't want revenge on that checkered jackass for shooting her in the head.
She already had a lead on where to go to find her assailant. New Vegas. And since she'd gotten the warning alongside her delivery order, old Johnson Nash might be able to shed some light on it. Worst case scenario, Hannah guessed she could book it to Utah.
But it wouldn't hurt to at least see what she could or had to do to improve her situation before throwing the towel once more and once again begin the growingly familiar task of cutting her losses and fleeing.
Hannah got up and began to gather her things. "Need more information before I commit…" Slinging both bag and gun over her shoulders, Hannah made her way into the next room to finalize her release from Doc Mitchell's care.
Time to go to the good doc and find out if she had any brain damage. Fingers crossed for luck.
Unfortunately, as the woman who would eventually come to be widely known as Courier Six would soon realize, that running wasn't always an option. That sometimes, steeling oneself and moving forward to face the consequences was the only choice available, for the better or worse.
Because soon, conflict would once again visit the Mojave Wasteland, staining its sands red and black with blood and bile from the ensuing bloodshed that would come.
Whether it be by the armies of the Two Headed Bear and Bull that sought to claim the Mojave Wasteland as their own, or the eventual bloody purge that would sweep the entire continent from east to west borne of one man's hatred against the most wicked and vile humanity had to offer, or even the forces beyond one's understanding and control and the ever-present workings of life and death…
Know that above all else, there is but one truth in this world.
To succeed, one must dedicate their heart for their beliefs to come to fruition. To achieve, one must surrender the blood, sweat, and tears of many and the self, wagering them against the possibility of failure. To persevere, one must be prepared to sacrifice their own misgivings and doubts for the sake of others.
But in the end, no matter what banner is flown, what cause is supported, and what ideology is striven for…
War.
War never changes.
-Excerpt from an aged and damaged journal found in the archives of the Lucky 38 during routine cleaning, circa year 2303. There is no listed ownership of the book, though dating the age of the paper and comparing the writing style to other works around the time period, many historians believe the journal belonged to Ricksaw, who had a known tendency to write many cryptic and philosophical journal entries of past events he lived through in future tense.
Whether this is a deliberate choice on Ricksaw's part or an indication the man was unhinged is unknown. Getting any concrete information on him from New Vegas is impossible due to the gag order issued to prevent discussion of Ricksaw outside of its military and higher ups.
Ricksaw's actions in the wasteland at large have drawn the ire of many powerful factions, including the Brotherhood of Steel, who are the predominant force between The Commonwealth and what civilization is left in The Capital Wasteland. He is considered by them to be a criminal and terrorist for including several of their branches in his continent-wide purge of undesirables, notably ones that abuse usage of their superior technology against civilians by protection rackets and similar offenses.
Outside of his previous transgressions, Ricksaw does not typically interfere with the Brotherhood of Steel activities, but the military organization is adamant that he is a danger to their cause and have repeatedly sent hunting parties consisting of entire contingents of power armored troops after him. None of these attempts have had a considerable measure of success, all resulting in heavy casualties or complete annihilation on the Brotherhood's end.
As the Brotherhood of Steel have found out the hard way, there is a good reason Ricksaw is more commonly referred to as "The New Vegas Butcher" in the wasteland at large. Despite his preferred combatant of choice being often untrained and undisciplined raiders, the man is no slouch in combat and is more than capable of overwhelming highly trained opponents should he be approached recklessly.
Because of this lack of information, there are numerous conflicting reports on Ricksaw's character and actions. Some say he was a devil who decided to take pity on the weak, others that he was a man broken by his experiences of a cruel world and tried to make it a better place the only way he knew how.
Karma. Paying evil unto evil. Wasteland "Justice".
Or perhaps, a less noble cause?
Bloodlust. War-mongering. Hedonism.
Whatever the case may be, what is generally agreed on is that Ricksaw was a ruthless killer, and showed little mercy to those he judged deserving of his wrath during the several decades he was active in the wasteland, leaving many of his funerary pyres stacked high with the charred corpses of raiders, slavers, and other assorted human scum dotting the landscape.
While I cribbed heavily in terms of dialogue from the vanilla game nearly word for word, I made a much more honest effort later on that you all won't see until the next chapter due to me separating this introductory part from it. So, you can all rest easy on that front, as I don't intend on copying the game word for word when it comes to dialogue between characters.
For those dissatisfied with the descriptor I gave of Hannah and want something more solid, there was a picture online I used as a reference on Pinterest. Hannah pretty much looks exactly like the drawing; except she has two bullet scars on her forehead.
pin/707768897661161407/
Here's the Pinterest id. Go to Pinterest, click on a post, and replace the numbers at the end of the address bar with the ones above. You're welcome.
Unlike canon New Vegas, The Courier is not amnesic and aware of what happened in The Divide, and this'll play an important role later on in the story. This story is also going to go somewhat AU and lore-unfriendly next chapter, but I'm sure you could already guess that from the resurrecting dude that attacked the SI. Not spoiling too much, but that "supernatural" tag isn't for show.
Things are about to get very weird in the Mojave…
Not giving a list of her perks since she isn't affected by skills and perks the same way the SI is, but she is an experienced combatant in her own right. You can probably guess some of her game stats if you look hard enough, but I will give her a detailed character sheet in the author notes next chapter alongside the SI (who is getting a major overhaul/nerf and is going back to 1 perk every two levels).
Honestly, I'm going to probably ditch some of the gamer stuff I had previously and be way laxer when it comes to tracking the SI's stats. Want to be more realistic and go in a different direction that won't result the SI becoming a complete murderhobo like I originally intended him to.
Here are a bunch of answers to year old reviews from way back when. From this point onward, I will start answering reviews by PM now unless I find them significant enough that the readers as a whole should know my response, which I'll then put in the latest chapter itself.
NazgulBelserion: That's because he got hit with the reality that he wasn't in a game anymore.
Some Guy In An Ambulance: Samuel looks scruffy and really rough, but he isn't hideously ugly, give the poor guy a little credit. I also think Rick is a more fitting name for the SI, but I couldn't let such a glaring oversight exist if the SI is going to go by the name "Ricksaw". In fact, I think I'll actually get rid of the last name Watts. Chapter 9 has been changed in the mass edit I performed way back in 2019, so the SI's name is just "Samuel" now.
Ddastan: This fanfic was never going to be a number crunching gamer fic. For starters, Fallout New Vegas's S.P.E.C.I.A.L and skills stat values don't work like that, so I can't just pile statistics on like I could a traditional [The Gamer] fanfic. Second, I hate those types of fanfics because the numbers are so pointless and really, who actually gives a fuck about them? All the readers care about is how much of a badass the protagonist is. I can't tell you too much about SI and Courier interactions for risk of spoiling stuff, but what I can tell you is that Samuel and Hannah will eventually meet. By the time they do, the SI will have his own thing going on and isn't going to drop everything and play second fiddle to the Courier.
Jcodope420: Vault Tec made two versions of the 999/1 vaults. One where the majority was males, another where the majority was females. Vault 68 and 69 respectively. The SI is referencing Vault 68, which had 999 males and one female.
themisticmist2000: I'll probably get around to putting this on Ao3 eventually. Someday. Spacebattles is a big no-no, mostly because this story will break the sites rules about violence and morally dubious stories like these are a disaster to post on that site. No thanks.