Jason walked down off the hill that he found himself on. Even with his eyes mostly adjusted, the sun was still glaringly bright. As a kid, he had enjoyed looking into the light fixtures for a while, and then blinking and seeing colorful patterns. At least until his dad told him that was bad for his eyes. However, he couldn't even look at the sun without spasmodic blinking and lots of pain.

In addition to how bright it was, everything was hot. He had just come outside, and already he was sweating through his jumpsuit. It was a good thing that there wasn't much wind because even just taking a step brought up a small cloud of dust that stuck to his boots.

At the bottom of the hill, Jason found himself on what used to be a road. Every now and then, along the road, Jason could see fragments of a guardrail to keep cars from driving off the road. After getting around some boulders, he saw the remnants of a small town. A few two-story buildings lined a narrow street. The buildings were virtually just walls at this point. Everything inside had caved in. In the street, there lay an old car, but it was crushed and burned beyond repair.

As Jason approached the town, his pip-boy 3000, the wrist device that all vault residents were required to wear, made a beeping noise. He looked at it. It had pulled up a map of the "Capital Wasteland." Near the center of the map were two locations. Vault 101 and the newly discovered Springvale.

Jason walked up to an old mailbox. It was hanging open. Inside it were three… frag grenades? Also, there were two strange dispersal devices. The pip-boy registered them as drugs known as jet and psycho. Jason had no intention of using drugs, but he took them anyway, just in case. He was very careful when placing the frag grenades in his backpack.

As he ventured further into the town, Jason came upon an old gas station tower. Near that, a strange, ball shaped robot was flying about issuing some sort of broadcast. Jason approached it carefully. It did not seem to notice him as it continued hovering about. The broadcast that it was playing was some old guy named John Henry Eden who claimed to be the president of the United State of America. The supposed president was talking about bringing back the glory days of America with… baseball? Right. Because a new baseball league would fix a barren wasteland. Jason walked away as Eden signed off and an annoying patriotic tune began playing.

Finally, Jason found a house that was intact, except for a hole in the roof. It looked abandoned, so he decided to go inside and take a few minutes away from the heat. He opened the unlocked door and went inside. Not three seconds inside the house, but a baseball bat was swung at his head. He ducked under it and caught it as it came back at him a second time. His hand smarted, but he yanked the bat away from his would-be attacker.

It was a woman in her mid thirties. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her shoulder-length hair, albeit a pretty color of silver, was an absolute mess.

"Woah!" he said. "Calm down! I don't want to hurt you."

The woman took a deep breath. "Well," she said, "since you're the one with the bat now…" She stopped and looked at the bat strapped to his back and the pistol holstered at his hip. "Bats… I guess you have the floor. What are you doing in my house?"

Jason said, "It looked empty from the inside. I thought I would come in and get a break from the heat."

"Well, you made a mistake, buster," she said. "Who are you? Did Moriarty send you? You're not getting a thing from me!"

"I'm Jason," he said, "Who's Moriarty? Who are you for that matter?"

"I"m Silver," Silver said. "Moriarty is the guy I owe 400 caps. You'd better not be here to collect!"

"I'm not here to collect anything," Jason said. "I don't even know who Moriarty is. Also, what are caps?"

"Stop fooling with me," Silver said.

"No," Jason said, "I just came from Vault 101. I have no clue what caps are."

"You came from the vault? Like I'd believe that," Silver said. "Stop pretending like you don't know what money is, you idiot."

"Okay," Jason said, "so, you owe this Moriarty guy 400 caps. What's your side of the story?"

"I used to work for him," she said. "I decided I was done. So, I took my share of the money I'd made him, and I bolted. I've been staying out here getting high out of my mind to forget, so thanks for coming here and reminding me."

"I'm sorry," Jason said. "You seem stressed."

"No kidding," Silver interrupted. "Now, if you've got nothing else to contribute, my psycho stash isn't going to inject itself into my veins."

"Maybe I could help you," Jason said. He couldn't just leave this woman to a bunch of drugs.

"Yeah, right," she scoffed. "What can you do? Can you make the pain go away? Didn't think so."

"If I can't help with the drug problem, maybe I can at least ease your mind about Moriarty," he said.

"Kid, the only way Moriarty would leave me alone is if he thought I was dead," she said. "Or, if he was dead."

"Then, I'll tell him you're dead. Where is he? I'll find him and tell him that I killed you," Jason said.

"Really?" Silver asked. "You would help me out against a man like Moriarty? You really are an idiot. Thank you, though. Moriarty is in Megaton. It's just over the next hill. Just don't come back. Leave me to my misery."

"Goodbye, Silver," Jason said. "Good luck."

"Yeah, whatever," Silver said as she pulled out a shot of psycho that looked just like the one Jason had found in the mailbox.

Jason set Silver's bat down and exited the house. He hated to see someone in that condition. He had only heard of drugs before that day. His father had told him how dangerous and addictive they were, so he had always avoided them. What could he do, though? He couldn't help someone that didn't want to be helped. At least he could try to get Moriarty off her back.

After leaving Silver's house, Jason walked a little down the road and found the remains of an old school. The sign said, "Springvale Elementary School." Except for the northern side of the building, which was missing a roof and wall, the building was mostly intact. Jason walked over to the school, and his pip-boy chirped. The location "Springvale School" was now marked on his map. Maybe there were more people there? Even kids?

Jason went around to the north side of the building. Something told him to be more careful this time. Last time he walked into a building, Jason had been attacked. He peeked his head and shoulder around the corner. A shot sounded as he felt a burning pain in his shoulder. The bullet had nicked him, ripping his jumpsuit and drawing a trickle of blood. So much for being more careful.

"Wait!" Jason yelled. "Stop! I mean you no harm!"

More bullets pelted the ground near him and the wall he was hiding behind.

"Yeah!" a raspy voice yelled. "Let's get 'im! I've been itchin' fer some action!"

Soon, a man in makeshift clothing and armor came around the corner, brandishing a knife. The man did not wait for Jason to say or do anything. He tackled Jason onto the ground. The man repeatedly tried to stab Jason. Jason barely dodged, each time moving his head to the side when the man brought the knife down. Jason reached for the knife. He managed to grab it, but the blade sliced his hand open as he did so.

"Raiders… never… lose…" the man grunted.

"Today you do," Jason said.

Jason, who had been pushing the knife toward the raider, yanked the knife back. The surprised raider let go and fell forward. Jason jabbed the knife forward as soon as he had control. The blade buried itself in the raider's neck. He gurgled and collapsed on top of Jason. Jason hurled the corpse off of himself. The raider's blood had flowed onto Jason's hand. Appalled, he shook his hand in a vain attempt to get it off.

Jason had to duck again as more bullets peppered the wall. A gleam caught Jason's eye. Some 10mm bullets had spilled out of the dead raider's pockets. So, Jason grabbed them and put them with the rest of his ammo. He drew the pistol Amata had given him.

"After everything I went through to escape the vault," he said to himself, "there is no way I'm going to get killed by some idiots who are attacking me for no reason!"

He took a deep breath, and rounded the corner, firing three bullets in the direction of his persistent attacker. There was a small hole in the wall at ground level. The rest of that section of the building did not have a roof, but there were still remnants of the first and second floor and some stairs. Jason jumped down onto some stairs below ground level. Even more bullets, coming from the second floor, zipped past him and hit the wall. He fired four bullets back as he ran down the stairs.

A female raider appeared out of nowhere, swinging a tire iron. The tire iron smacked into Jason's face, knocking him on his butt. He instinctively reached his hand to where she had hit him. He couldn't tell whether his head was bleeding because his hand already was from the knife. Plus there was the raider's blood.

Jason groaned at the disgusting mess. The raider swung her tire iron down at him again. Jason rolled to the side and pulled out his bat. He swung it, but she dodged. He swung again and the end of the bat made contact with her jaw. CRACK! Her jaw moved way too far to the side as several teeth went flying. Jason followed through on the swing, sending her head spinning backward. SNAP! The trouble was, the rest of her body didn't follow her head's trajectory. The raider's body slumped to the ground.

Jason grabbed his pistol again. The raider on the second floor finally showed himself as he fired another three shots at Jason. Jason popped out from behind cover. BANG! One shot tore into the raider's arm, forcing him to drop his gun. BANG! The second shot hit the raider straight in the chest. The raider dropped off the edge of the broken floor and fell two stories to the basement where Jason was. Jason walked over to the raider and took some more 10mm ammo. He reloaded his gun. He also found 16 bottle caps on the raider. He figured those were the currency that Silver had been talking about.

Jason went upstairs to the second floor next. He found some more ammo in an ammo box, bringing the total number of rounds to 78. He also found three bottles of nuka-cola, a beverage that was produced en masse before, during, and a little after the nuclear war. According to his old history lessons, the stuff never went bad. He went back downstairs and found a bathroom. After relieving himself, Jason went over to the sinks. His adrenaline wearing off, Jason now realized just how thirsty he had become because of the heat and action. He turned on the sink which, to his surprise, still worked. He drank some of the water.

"Blechh!" he exclaimed. "That's the most revolting thing I've ever tasted!"

He was hungry too. He found a box of cereal, called "Sugar Bombs." He ate a few, but they were basically just preservatives at this point. He was unsure whether they were gross or just plain bland. First thirst, then hunger, then pain hit him as the last of the excitement faded. His wounds were beginning to throb and sting. He pulled out one of the stimpaks that he had taken from his room back in Vault 101. He stabbed it into his arm and injected the contents. He could almost feel his wounds repair themselves as he sat down to rest.

What if there were more of these raiders inside the school? He couldn't just leave them here to attack more innocent wanderers. Plus, what if they found Silver? He shook his head, unable to believe the decision he had just made.

"I'm sorry, Dad. I promised myself I would find you; and, I'm sorry, Amata. I promised myself I'd come back to you. But… I just can't leave something like this behind. If I can make this wasteland a safer place, I've got to at least try. Three raiders down… and I'm about to find out how many more are left."

Jason got up and moved over to a set of double doors that doubtlessly led to the basement of the school. There was no way he was going to be stupid enough to go through the front door.

So, he opened the doors and went inside saying, "Raiders, prepare to get schooled."