Chapter 5: Memories

August 7th, 2075

My name is Lydia and today marks the beginning of the end of my life.

One of my earliest memories of my family was my 4th birthday. Aside from our Mr. Handy accidentally throwing the potato salad at my Uncle Wilbur and pictures upon pictures of the cake frosting on my face, it's one of few memories of my father.

I almost couldn't believe it. Of the few memories I have of him, this had to be one of them. Where I am and what I'm doing... I'm just numb.

When I was 10, I lost my mother to the New Plague while she was treating the infected in Utah in the Four States Commonwealth. It was a humanitarian and mercy mission for all the doctors across the United States to help ease the pain of those infected. We couldn't even have a wake for fear of contamination spread; her body had to be burned.

He was never around, so much so my mother often thought the seven year stipulation on marriage abandonment would annul their vows. After the memorial, my dad boarded a plane at Midway Airport telling me there was work to be done. I lived with my Uncle Wilbur while he was away.

Aside from having an absolute fear of the Blue Flu to the point of obsession and the constant feel-good news reports concerning the Resource Wars of the Middle East, my life was normal. Between my father sending college money, me wanting to become a doctor like my mom and uncle, and being driven to rid the world of this disease I had made quite a life for myself working for West Tek out west.

I had it all; job security; a large bank account; worked my own hours; was the youngest female head of a project. I worked my way up through my determination to rid the world of this family-robbing virus. It was great...

At first.

For a time, while I was in college me and my dad kept in communication with each other through letters. When I wrote to him telling him I got a post-grad internship at West Tek, instead of being proud of me like I hoped he would, he told me not to take it.

The bastard FORBID me to work there. I only see him maybe 72 hours out of a whole year and he has the audacity to tell me not to go after a great opportunity? So, from that point forward, I called him a fuck, told him he didn't care about my research, or about mom. I didn't see him again.

That is until I heard the news.

Uncle Wilbur called me at the lab. My dad was arrested for corporate and industrial espionage. He had broken into the RobCo Industries facility in Washington D.C. hacking the mainframe with RobCo's new Unified Operating System stored on it. All that time he was gone, he told me he worked for RobCo. Come to find he was an Anti-Government and Anti-Corporate activist. All the money he sent me was money he got hacking General Atomics' corporate accounts. With luck, the feds didn't trace the money back to me or Uncle Wilbur. Still, it left me shocked.

When the gavel came down, the world slowed down. Still feels like it is. All I can think is, "Why? Why did he lie to me? Why did he steal?" I can't find the words. There is at least one thing I do know:

I HATE him.

Rep put the notebook he found back in his messenger bag, soon picking up his Nuka-Cola and finishing it off. He placed the handkerchief back over his mouth as he approached Cheryl who was reading a ¡La Fantoma! comic. She put the comic back in her gunny sack and the both of them proceeded back toward Brahmin Wood when she asked the Vault Dweller, "What were you reading?"

Rep delayed his answer, "Something that... Well, I guess a very special lesson for us all."

The wastelander looked at the Vault Engineer, confusion in her eyes and gas-masked voice, "What's so special about it?"

He had a look of conflict on his face – for what little of it could be seen, "It reminds me of someone I once knew."

Brahmin Wood. What was once a miserable tribal community is now a flourishing trader town in the nexus of the former Great Midwest Commonwealth. Even with the most recent snow storm people were out in the marketplace.

Cheryl and Rep walked into downtown Brahmin Wood, her pulling off her mask and throwing her arms wide, "I love the smell of commerce in the morning!"

Rep also reached up for his handkerchief, but did it quickly then ran for the nearest snow bank. He dropped to his knees and the sounds of him vomiting came from behind the snow. Cheryl walked up behind him with an eyebrow raised, "You okay, Vault Boy?"

Rep – looking deathly pale – raised his Pip-Boy up and looked at the Geiger Counter. He had deadly radiation sickness, "Well," his voice cracked, "that explains that."

"Come on, you pussy," she bent down to help the man up, "you had better shielding on than me and I'm not that sick."

"You don't understand, when I was run out a few days ago I had to take a shortcut through the Vault's reactor," Rep stumbled to his feet, "Security was on my ass almost the whole way out."

"You mean," she said, straining to help him balance himself, "you already had radiation sickness?"

"I'm the Senior Vault Maintenance Engineer, I get radiation poisoning at least three times a week. I was overdue for radiation treatment at the medical center when I got booted. That stroll through the reactor didn't help much." He did look rather pale. He was already getting blotchy inflamed skin from the hot particles, "Yeah," Cheryl commented, "I'd say it didn't." "I can't see," Rep announced, "My eyesight's starting to blur." Cheryl put a hand to his forehead; he was burning up, "We need to find a doctor, and I happen to know the best in town." With his arm over her shoulder, Cheryl helped Rep walk over the railroad tracks and to a corner bar that was holding up well despite over 200 years of weathering.

The door to the old saloon opened, cold air following the door. A gruff voice rang from the bar as soon as the door opened, "Hey, close the damn door! You're letting the heat out!" Rep was really having a hard time staying on his feet even with Cheryl's support. The same voice rang out again as heavy footsteps clunked on the hardwood floor, "Oh, Jesus!"

"Reggie! He's all fucked up! Give me a hand!" Rep felt another set of hands grab his free arm and heft him up. He felt his body slump into a chair with his hat and glasses soon removed. He felt a weathered hand touch the edges of his eyelid as it was forced open. A light shined into his eye as the gruff voice spoke again, "Deadly Radiation Sickness. Were you two in the Heights too long or something?"

"That's part of it. He's not FUBAR, is he?"

There was a light slap against his cheek, "Hey, you gotta stay awake!" Rep's attention came up a bit from that, but his vision was still fuzzy, "No, but I'd say another 15 RADs, he would have been picking turnips with a stepladder."

"Fuck," Cheryl couldn't contain her amazement, "This guy's tougher than I thought."

"Yeah, yeah, 'Endurance,' and all that jazz. 100 caps."

"He doesn't have anything. I don't have much either."

"This isn't a halfway house, kid," the voice seemed annoyed, "I only do caps or trade. Cheryl, you know this!"

"I owe him! He took out the Ghoul Kids. He finally freed me."

"This portly asshole? He did what?" After a moment of silence - likely because the person Cheryl was talking to was impressed - it sounded he went back to business, "Hey, unless you can trade something, I might as well get back to repairing shit."

"You're just gonna leave him to die?"

"Repair?" Rep suddenly came back to his senses when this very word was uttered, "You a repair guy?" All he could see was the man's outline as well as Cheryl's; on top of being deathly sick from radiation, his removed glasses made things harder to see. "Yeah," his mystery host said, "a very busy one, at that." "Okay," Rep was laboring hard to breathe, "if I trade my services, will you heal my radiation?"

The blob of an outline spoke again, slightly intrigued, "I'll tell ya what, I'll administer one bag of RadAway to get you functional again, you do a little job for me, and then I'll get rid of the rest of the radiation. Is it a bargain?" Rep looked up. He couldn't make heads or tails of who he was looking at, but he could make out enough to see the man holding out his hand. He figured – as best as he could in his condition – if Cheryl trusted him, he could.

With his hand outreached, Rep connected hands with the man and they closed the deal. With his hand still gripping the stranger's, the stranger turned his hand and pushed up his sleeve. He felt a needle poke into his arm. Soon after, a warm sensation dripped into that arm and flowed into the rest of his body. He felt sleepy...

Hours had passed. The RadAway had a profound effect on the cold and sick Vault Dweller as he stirred. He looked over and found his glasses and hat next to him on a dresser. After putting his eyewear on, Rep sat up in the bed and looked around. It looked like a shop of some kind not unlike his back in the Vault, but the parts didn't look clean and new like they looked coming out of the extruder; they were rusty, dirty, and somewhat deformed.

Despite being somewhat disoriented from the lingering radiation sickness the Vault Engineer swung his feet off the bed and stood up. It took him three attempts to do so, but he managed to get on his feet and stay that way. He wandered around and took note of the metal boxes on the shelves, the parts strewn about the desk and workbench, and all the old and haphazardly repaired test equipment.

Rep finally noticed the windows. Ignoring the desk for a moment, he walked to the darkened window and looked outside. He noticed the street was below; he was on the second floor of the old bar. Across the street was a train station and a commuter parking lot loaded with cars that haven't moved in almost 208 years. The station itself – made of the same stone the old prison Vault 53 was located under – was crumbling and dilapidated. With the trains destroyed there was little point in taking care of the place.

There were few people in the streets; the bitter cold forcing merchants and customers alike to turn in for the night. Out of curiosity Rep checked his Pip-Boy's clock; it was 9:00 at night. He was out for five or six hours. He couldn't be sure of that though because he couldn't remember when the last time was he checked the clock.

"So, the Vault Boy arises," Rep turned to find Cheryl leaning against the door jamb of the room, "You doing better?"

"Still a little tired," he said, voice slightly weak, "but I'll manage."

In her hand she had a bottle of whiskey. She uncorked the bottle as she spoke, "Well, Reggie said you need more sleep, so I figured you'd like a swig." She put the bottle's mouth to her lips and took a large drink. She then took the bottle and tilted it toward him. "That's okay," he held up his hand, "I already feel like vomiting, I don't need another incentive to do so."

He stumbled back to the bed and sat down as she grabbed the desk chair and rolled it over to the bed to sit with him. He placed his elbows on the tops of his legs and put his head in his hands, removing his glasses again before doing so. He swayed back and forth slightly showing that the radiation sickness affected his equilibrium.

"You are gonna be okay, right?" Cheryl cocked an eyebrow, bending over in her chair to get a look at the man's face before her. He looked up, his face still pale and sweat-drenched. He reverted his eyes and sighed, "I never let it get this bad for so long before," after wiping his forehead with his Vault suit's sleeve he placed his glasses back on his face, "I always heard stories about prolonged radiation exposure," He shook his head, "I would have hated to be in Vault 12 when the war started."

Cheryl was in mid drink of her whiskey when she slowly looked to the blue jumpsuited man with a look of confusion. Rep took notice of this, "The reason I was run out was because I found something only the Vault Overseers were meant to see."

January 22nd, 2285

Vault 53 – Reactor Level

It was morning. You couldn't tell it from the never-changing steel walls and soft glow of the Simu-Sun lighting systems, but the clocks read, "0800" throughout the Vault. The main door that led to the General Atomics-built Reactor Control Room opened, everyone in the room jolted when the door clunked loudly. Rep - A tall husky man in a Vault Utility suit wearing thick-rimmed glasses - followed by a much older man in a normal Vault Citizen suit walked into the control room. The three operators before the control panels nervously looked behind them as the two men talked, "How are the new efficiency tests coming along?"

"I got the kids here taking care of the Xenon-135 problem" Rep responded, "The extruders had a hell of a time synthesizing the barium-graphite plates; come to find out the damn thing's molecular composition processor was burned out again."

The older man cocked an eyebrow, "I'm trusting you fixed it?"

"Yeah," Rep said, pulling up on his Vault suit's belt, "but this time it ain't ever gonna break again." The old man's eyes opened wide, "How did you manage that?"

"Found we had a bad run of the damn things in spare parts storage. The processor's main bus has a point in it where the gauge drops in size; a little too much power, the narrow point in the bus heats up and burns out. Bye-bye processor, hello sixteen hours work and over nine-hundred ticked off Vault Citizens. So, I just ran a bus bypass on the main socket, and voila!" The old man had a concerned look on his face as though Rep's news was dangerous or bad in some way, "Uh... Is there something wrong, sir?"

"Huh? Oh! No, son!" the man placed a hand on Rep's shoulder, "No, that's fine work you did there, son." For some reason Rep still had the feeling he did something he wasn't supposed to do. For the longest time, almost seven generations going on eight, all the machines in the Vault broke. Constantly. Rep would have figured finding the flaw with at least one machine would excite someone, especially the Vault's Overseer.

He had seen this face on the Overseer before; when he repaired the malfunctioning Auto-Doc in the medlab that killed little Denny Foster; all the doors throughout the Vault that severed several feet and legs; when he announced the solution to the Reactor's power fall off; before his father's...

"Well," the old man broke Rep's concentration, "I have a birthday to attend."

"Of course, sir." Rep said before he turned to look over the shoulder of one of the operators. The Overseer was about to walk out of the room when he stopped and turned back, "Oh, before I forget," the old man said, "Ariel talked to Mitch and told me to tell you that you're back on the guest list."

"Did you convince your son not to stomp on my intestines when he sees me at the reception?" Rep asked with snark.

"Oh, of course I did," Rep looked back, "I'm the Overseer, after all."

"And not because you and my dad raised hell as kids," a small smile crept from the corner of the engineer's mouth.

The Overseer walked back to him, a somewhat saddened smile appearing on his face in turn, "You are one hell of an engineer, just like your dad. I consider you my son no different than Mitch."

"Yeah, two sons who hate each other," Rep reverted his eyes, "I guess that's what happens when brothers disagree."

"There's someone for everyone, son."

Rep shook his head, "Naw. There's only so many people in this Vault. I feel like this is the end of my line, man."

"Listen to yourself," Rep looked up at the man before him, "You're young yet, you'll find someone here, you just need to talk. You know, communicate with confidence like you have confidence with machines," The man patted him on the arm, "Okay?" With a chuckle, the Overseer walked out of the Reactor Control Room door, sliding shut behind him.

Looking after where the old man had gone for a moment, Rep put his hands on his hips and scoffed at the idea. "You know, sir," one of the operators spoke up, "he has a point."

"Hey, you wanna do garbage detail for the next month?" Rep's words made the young operator's eyes go wide then made him quickly turn back to his control panel.

The rest of the day was rather routine; a stop at the Armory to repair some plasma rifles; showing up to the common room to repair the lounge's Nuka Cola machine; repairing several lights in the main entrance corridor. It had been a full day. Looking over his clipboard, he found there was one repair left on the task list for the day; the Overseer's terminal. "That's strange," he commented to no one, "Why didn't he mention this earlier?" With a shrug of his shoulders, he proceeded to Administration on level two.

Toolbox in hand he walked to the Overseer's office and pressed the intercom button. "Yes?" a static-filled voice called from the device. "It's me, sir." The door made a metallic clunk as it unlocked and opened, the sound of pneumatic pistons hissing as they assessed the heavy door's movement. Rep stepped inside to find the Overseer at his terminal, his face beet red with anger. Approaching the man from behind, Rep saw that the whole monochrome screen was filled with lines of gibberish; the whole screen littered with nonsense characters and letters.

"What seems to be the issue?" Rep placed his toolbox on the desk as he watched the older man keep typing commands on his keyboard only to finally ball up his hands into fists and slam them down in fury on his desk, "I don't know!"

The man stood from his chair and started pacing in the room, "I came back from little Judy McIntyre's party, and found this... chunk of shit acting like... like... this!" The Overseer kicked the side of the desk as though he was kicking the side of the terminal. He quickly found that to be a mistake as he started hobbling around on his kicking foot in pain.

"How long ago did you put in the repair ticket?"

"An hour ago!" some of the pain subsided as he went back to pacing, "I was working on the Vital Vault Operation Statistics before I left to talk to you this morning; I thought I could salvage it myself. Two weeks of work – shot to shit!" The older man grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter on his desk and stormed out of the room, shouting as he walked out, "Fix that fucking thing!" The door shut behind him.

Rep was in awe. He had never seen that man so upset before, and over a device that has an issue at least two times a week almost everywhere in the Vault. Then again, this was the first time that he knew of where the Overseer's terminal actually malfunctioned. Nonetheless, he went to work. For him, it wasn't hard to figure out what had gone wrong. After gaining root command of the operating kernel, he found that, somehow, the master language file had been replaced with a file that changed the alphabet to absolute insanity. It looked as though the alphabet was inverted. He deleted the file and restored defaults the best he could, but he needed the Overseer's master access password.

Just as he was about to stand up from the Overseer's desk, he remembered how utterly ticked off the man was when he left. It did bother him; quite a bit. Even in the past when the man was mad, it meant great wrath. At his current level of anger, asking the man of anything would mean a great tongue lashing and maybe mucking the sewage system for the rest of his life.

Nestling himself back into the Overseer's chair, Rep looked at the screen, biting his lip as he looked at the RobCo UOS start screen. He reached for his toolbox and opened it up. He took a deep breath and lifted the top tool tray out to reveal a very old notebook underneath.

He opened the book and started flipping pages of handwritten notes until he found what he was looking for. After a few keyed commands, a screen with multiple words spread among random characters scrolled across the screen. After a few minutes he found the correct password lifted in the temporary memory.

He checked all the files to see if everything worked as it should. The most recent file – the Vault Statistics file the Overseer was so concerned about – opened with no problem. He was about to close the file when his name popped up in his visual scan.

"'It is with a heavy heart that – for the sake of the experiment – that the Senior Vault Maintenance Engineer not only be terminated from his position...'" Rep's eyes went wide as he read the next phrase, "'...but also of his life, just like his father, Robert.'"

"There was an experiment." Rep had found his RobCo messenger bag tucked under the bed he was laying in during his sickness. In his hand was a dot matrix printout of not only his Overseer's report, but a master list of all 122 Vaults built by Vault-Tec with each purpose listed next to the number. He handed it to Cheryl who looked through the list of green and white lines until she found Rep's Vault; she found Vault 53.

"'Vault 53: Consistent Mechanical Failure.'" She looked up, her eyes telegraphing her slight inebriation, "You mean because you were that good, you had to be killed to keep the experiment... pure?"

Rep looked as though he was about to speak, but stopped himself to rethink what he was to say, knowing he had to explain it in a way Cheryl would understand, "Well, yes and no." He rubbed his chin as he thought, "There's more to this than you realize. Far more." He raised his Pip-Boy and took note of the time. He grabbed the green and white dot matrix paper print out and placed it back in his messenger bag, "We got some work to do tomorrow. I suggest you sober up."

Cheryl took offense to that, "Who are you, my fucking mother?"

"It's eleven o'clock," Rep spoke as though he was still speaking to his subordinates in the Vault, "We got shit to do tomorrow and I don't wanna hear, 'hangover,' as an excuse."

"Fine!" she exclaimed, "I don't wanna hear, 'dying from radiation,' as one, either!" She stood up and walked to the room's door, walking slightly from side to side as she did. She slammed the door behind her, the noise emanating from the action causing him to flinch. Rep couldn't help but shake his head, "That is one strange woman." With that, he placed his feet back in the bed and turned out the light behind him on the dresser.