"Everything is cool when you're part of a team."
A horrendous buzzing sound blared out from somewhere over Julia's left shoulder, sounding as if it ought to herald the apocalypse.
Please shut up, she thought towards the noise. I don't have to go in today. What's one day? Nobody will die. The sky won't fall. The world won't end.
The noise continued in stubborn defiance of her pleas.
I can do threats. Don't think I won't! I'll find a hammer and smash you to pieces... For doing exactly what I bought you for. Uggggh.
Rolling over, she hit the switch on her alarm and started shuffling towards the bathroom.
"The dead walk!" came a cheerful voice from the kitchen. "I was starting to wonder if we'd need an alarm clock or a bucket of cold water to get you moving!"
"Mnungh." Julia called back wittily.
"Don't mind Jonas, he's just sore he lost our bet," came Dad's voice. "He said you'd be up before you hit 'snooze' four times, but I had the home field advantage."
"Fnlorn!" she replied indignantly from around some toothpaste.
"Come on, we can stop for a bagel on our way in," Jonas said. "Maybe then you'll remember how to talk in time for class."
"Blerm," she said decisively.
-0-
"Ille, illa, illud."
"Bene," said Dr. Brotch. "And the plural?"
"Illī, illae-" she began, before he interrupted gently.
"The plural genitive case, Ms. Mateus. As it says on the board."
"Um-" she hesitated, as a whisper from beside her prompted her.
"Illōrum", it said.
Covering her false start with a fake cough, she finished her answer. "Illōrum, illārum. Illōrum."
"Very nice," the professor said, beaming. "That'll do it for today's class. Just remember to brush up on your pronouns for Friday's quiz. Amata won't be there to bail you out for that, estne clarum?"
Julia ducked her head in response to the good-natured ribbing as the class tittered, and filed out the door.
"Phewwww!" she sighed gustily as they walked. "I thought learning a dead language would be easy! All this memorization is gonna do my head in though."
"Oh please, you never thought this would be easy," Amata teased back. "You wanted to take Latin because you wanted to protest the university's foreign language requirements."
"I'll show them!" she continued, adopting a fake-serious voice. "If I kill myself learning a useless language they won't get the satisfaction!"
Julia stuck her tongue out at her. "Leave it to you to take the fun out of a nonsensical bit of political theater."
"Oh, don't worry, I'll put it back in later," Amata shot back in with a devil's grin. "I thought up some new rhymes to help us memorize everything."
"And how many of them are explicit?" Julia asked innocently.
"Only about.. Half?" Amata estimated. "Look, you know the Romans were weird, they invented dick jokes!"
"Popularized, maybe," Julia countered. "But there's no way they were the first, not when there's an entire chapter of the Epic of Gilgamesh about the 'towers' of Uruk."
"You- oh here comes Veronica, she can settle this for us," Amata said, spotting their friend running over. "Hey! Veronica! We have a penis question for you!"
"Jesus on the cross Amata, you can't just yell that across the quad-"
"Julia! Thank god!" Veronica said. "Listen, this isn't real, you need to fight-"
-0-
"For your right! To paaaarrrr-tay!"
Veronica held out her hand and dropped her microphone onto the stage, flouncing happily back to their table.
"A for effort," Julia said, laughing. "But picking the oldies on karaoke night? That's either the world's cruelest handicap or you've got some weird taste in music."
"Says the girl who wanted to go to the axe throwing bar," Veronica countered. "And hey! I can see that face you're making, this is less dangerous!"
"All I'm saying is axe throwing can be a great way to let off steam!" she said, holding her hands up defensively. "Twenty million Americans can't be too far wrong, can they?
"Do you want a list?" Amata asked dryly before taking a sip from her glass. "'Cause I've got a list."
"How many are just me?" Veronica asked innocently.
"Oh, you have your own list!" Julia cackled. "I've seen it!"
"Look, everyone ends up on the List eventually," Amata said, rolling her eyes. "You two nerds just got on the train early."
"You mean we have taste!" Veronica countered, unabashed. "And style!"
"That's not what the list saaaays..." Amata teased back in a sing-song tone. "Look... thanks for taking me out tonight. I've really needed a break, what with the riots and the war and learning to become the Overseer and everything."
"Yeah, I hear th-" Julia started. "Wait, the who?"
"Oh no," Amata said, her face suddenly ashen. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it, please, let me try again, I was only-"
-0-
"-trying to help you, Ms. Mateus," The gentleman settled back into his seat for subtle emphasis. "But therapy has to be an interactive process, I can't give you more back than what you put in."
"Sorry, doc, I'm doing my best here," Julia said from her couch. "But if I knew exactly what was bothering me, I wouldn't need your help."
"Perhaps we can start from the beginning, then. Ja?" the therapist said, his accent coming out alongside his enthusiasm. "On the phone, you mentioned you'd been feeling... Adrift. Lost, or purposeless lately."
"I think the word I used was 'disconnected'," she put in. "Like I'm looking at my own life through a screen."
"Speaking purely literally, you are looking at the world from a remove, you know." At her eyebrow raise, he continued. "Your brain is the ultimate arbiter of your experience, and it has to rely on your hands and eyes and ears to perceive the world around you. Technically speaking, 'you' are just getting signals back like a computer core in a robot. Perhaps your mind is simply pulling itself back a bit?"
"That doesn't seem quite right," Julia mused. "I mean, I know things are crazy these days. The war with China isn't going so well, and we've invaded Canada for God's sake. Not to mention how everyone's pretending it's 1950 again to try and convince ourselves that 2077 doesn't suck quite so badly."
"Ja, though I have been enjoying the 'Ink Spots' more than I thought I would." the doc chuckled.
"I definitely don't want to set the world on fire," she said, smiling despite herself. "Maybe that's part of what's bothering me, though. Everyone else is trying to pretend we're somewhere and some-when we're not, and I'm the one stuck trying to make sense of it."
"Ah, but that's the beauty of the mind, no?" the doctor noted. "If you present consistent enough stimuli, eventually it creates its own coping mechanisms, and you don't need to try anymore. You say mass delusion, I say it could be the foundation of a new world."
"Until your new world gets interrupted by the old one chucking nukes." Julia noted.
"Ahh, but that depends on where one is sitting when those nukes fly, no?" he chuckled. "I think I see what's going on though - everyone else needed to maintain a sense of normality. The familiar, the anodyne, the suburban."
He said that last word as if spitting, before moving on. "But you? Oh, your mind is a treasure box. A quest to save your lost father, grotesque monsters, knights in shining armor - your reality is entirely too strange to simply snap back. I will have to get creative for the first time in many years, how exciting!"
Julia sat bolt upright. "Hey, yeah, wait a minute! You-
-0-
Tuesday, October 10, 2277
Vault 112 - Simulation Room
02:23
"He has a full override?" Knight Forman asked incredulously. "I didn't think you could even do that on RobCo tech."
"Clearly he's got some custom hardware going on," Veronica said, typing furiously. "Also, his security software is amazing - it's almost like there's an actual person fighting against me here."
"Would that be so weird? I thought the whole point of this system was to keep these vegetables safe in their freezer so their minds could hook into the computers."
"Yeah, but even the pre-War military wouldn't give users root access," Veronica countered, chewing on a strand of hair. "They were evil and paranoid, not stupid. Usually."
"And nobody in the pods seems to have a weird access level or hidden hacking skills?" Syd asked.
"I checked everyone's registry against the Vault's public databanks," Veronica explained, still typing. "Aside from Julia and her dad, everyone else was a normal-ass suburbanite before the war. Except - wait. Hey!"
"That's not a happy noise you're making, Veronica," Syd noted.
"Sort of yes? But also no! But also -argh. Listen!" she spluttered. "The way the data trunk is wired up is weird, it's like it was designed to connect to a satellite uplink at some point but there's no dish and it doesn't make sense for a Vault to have a satellite dish anyway, they were meant to be secret. But now that I'm really looking at it, I think there's another pod somewhere else in the facility, and that's where all this admin traffic is coming from."
"Do you want me to go have another look around?" the Knight asked.
"Please do, and be careful," Veronica noted fervently. "I'll stay here and keep an eye on our friend. Haven't heard anything since I snuck a message in hours ago…"
"She'll be okay, Veronica," Syd said, heading out. "Ad victoriam!"
Veronica snorted to herself before turning back to the terminal. "Latin. Psh. That'll never catch on."
-0-
"Captain's Cosmolog, stardate 1512.2. Captain Julia "Cosmos" Mateus, commanding. We are.. en route... to Star Station Sullivan to stock up on supplies... In preparation for our continuing exploration mission. To seek out new life and new civilizations... For truth, justice, and the Space-American way!"
She snapped off the recorder with a flourish before turning to the helm.
"Lieutenant Almodovar, our current time to Sullivan Station?"
"At current speed, five hours, twenty seven minutes, captain!" Amata chirped from the front.
"Radio ahead, tell 'em to smoke me a space kipper," the Captain said, leaning back in her chair with a smirk. "We'll be there for breakfast."
-0-
Vault 112 - Simulation Room
04:43
"Looks like the data trunk terminates in the Overseer's office behind a seriously reinforced door," Syd said over their radio. "We're not getting in here with brute force."
"See what you can find out about the connection paths," Veronica countered. "The more we know about how this place is wired up, the easier it'll be to disrupt the simulation. Besides, I think I have a line on something here."
"Good luck. Forman out."
05:05
"Oh, that works. That works nicely," Veronica said, grinning a devil's grin. "This isn't just custom hardware, you really had to hack this crap together, didn't you? I may not be able to override your root access just yet, but I can-"
-she entered a series of commands with a flourish-
"-start to sneak in some of my own ideas. Now to see what's going on in the sim... Oh, you have to be shitting me."
-0-
"Captain's Cosmolog, supplemental. We've picked up a vessel of unknown configuration shadowing us towards Star Station Sullivan. We can't afford to let an enemy get so close to a key refueling outpost, but neither can we provoke a war. Only time... will tell."
"Negative readings on the scanners, Keptin," said the young lad on navigation. "Is like trying to see trained bear in snow storm."
"Aren't those usually black bears?" Amata asked, unable to help herself.
"Da, in other places maybe," the ensign began, "but in the glorious St. Petersburg Circus-"
"Another time, Mr. Chekov," Captain Cosmos cut in. "Keep an eye on that ship and bring us around to Sullivan the long way. I've got a bad feeling about this."
"Right you are, Captain!" came a voice from the just-arrived turbolift in the rear of the bridge. Out stepped a Fleet commander who looked damnably familiar, striding over to take a seat next to the Captain's chair.
Damn, is she new? I'd remember someone like that.. Maybe it's the skirt. God bless Fleet issue skirts, the Captain thought to herself. "I was expecting Commander Skyfire, I don't think we've met."
"Stella's on leave, don't you remember?" the newcomer said, smoothing her uniform out reflexively. "Commander Santangelo, reporting for duty."
"Ah, of course.. That sounds right," Captain Mateus murmured to herself, pushing aside her confusion. Gotta be the skirt. "You were saying, though?"
"That's no unidentified ship behind us, Captain," the Commander explained "That's the personal starship of... Doctor Zorbo!"
"That rat fink commie?" the Captain snarled.
"The very same," Santangelo nodded. "He runs his entire operation out of that ship - all of his computer tapes, his research, even his personal shrine to the Devil."
The Captain seethed openly for a full minute, (the bridge lighting illuminating her face very dramatically,) before a sly smile crept across her face.
"If he's here with us, Santangelo, then we're here with him, wouldn't you say?"
"Arming weapons, Keptin?" asked Chekov.
"Damn right, Ensign," Julia grinned. "Amata, prepare to bring us about. Chekov, warm up the sonic cannons. We're about to give this commie sonofabitch a present from Uncle Sam."
"Ook, ook!" said Jangles the Moon Monkey, dancing happily on the back of her chair and clapping his little cymbals.
-0-
Vault 112 - Simulation Room
05:16
"I actually can't tell how much of this is a personality overlay and how much is her just hamming it up," Veronica mused to herself. "Either way - prepare to eat sonic cannon, security protocols!"
-0-
"Direct hit!" Amata cheered. "He's dead in space! Should we finish him off?"
"Not yet," Captain Cosmos said, steepling her fingers. "I want him to feel like as much of a failure as his chosen socioeconomic system."
"He's hailing, Captain!" said the comms officer. "Should I patch him through?"
"Why not?" the Captain gestured magnanimously at the viewscreen. "Zorbo's been a menace to Space America for the last twenty years, we may as well look him in the eye. On screen!"
The Doctor's wrinkled face appeared on the viewscreen, his scowl as fierce as his ideology wasn't.
"I don't know who you are, but your meddling in my simulation is going to come to a swift end," he growled. "I built the code for these servers myself, you can't hope to out-code me!"
"What's this loon babbling about?" the Captain asked. "Servers? What is this, the Ritz?"
"No doubt that much exposure to Communism has rotted his brain, Sir," Veronica said with a carefully straight face. "Best thing we can do is put an end to this."
"Even inserting a custom NPC can't disrupt this reality matrix now that I've built in extra 'weirdness', as you call it," the Doctor scoffed. "Now that I know the key to your friend's mind, I think we'll be here for a very long time indeed."
"Yeah, I think you're right. Guns!" she barked. "Put this slimeball out of my misery."
"See you soon," Veronica smirked.
As his ship lit up with sonic energy, space flickered in strange monochromatic colors. Everyone on the bridge was thrown out of their seats, clutching their heads.
"Oh god," Chekov said, suddenly accentless. "I... how long has it been? My name.. What's my name?"
"I'm sorry, Doctor!" Lieutenant Almodovar sobbed. "I tried to do it like you said! Please don't turn the pain again! It's not my fault! I remembered this time! I remember I remember I-"
"Hey," Veronica said, shaking the Captain's shoulder. "Are you with me?"
"...Veronica?" Julia said, blinking foggily. "Wh-?"
"That will be quite enough of that, thank you," said a man wearing a blue jumpsuit who hadn't been there a moment ago. "Clearly this is not working.. I'll need to try something else."
He snapped his fingers and the world vanished into whiteness.
-0-
Sunday, October 8, 2277
Vault 112 - Simulation Room
10:13
"Look, all I'm saying is it seemed like we left in a hurry," Julia said, inspecting one of the interface pods. "We could have, I dunno, asked people for advice. Gotten supplies or something."
"I'm already sticking my neck out a bit to help you with this, Jules," Veronica said from behind the computer. "Requisitioning supplies would be directly out of the question."
"Sorry..." Julia said, abashed. "I really do appreciate this, Veronica. I don't know what I'd do if I lost my dad."
"Ugh, I'm sorry too," she said, standing up and walking over to the pod. "This technology is fascinating, but frustrating and I love to hate working on it."
"And I really need to be plugged in?" Julia fretted. "Dad's note specifically said not to do that."
"Yeah, actually," Veronica said, pacing. "The only real difference I can see between this system and say, a regular persistent environment server is the direct neural uplink, which is almost entirely hardware. Most of the data packets are actually standard-format! However, hardware like this is designed to operate inside its own ecosystem - it's usually designed to not be accessible from outside. Our experience with Corporal Whoever was sort of a fluke."
"So to mess with the simulation, I'll need to be in the simulation." Julia mused.
"Exactly!" Veronica beamed. "Don't worry though, I've patched in through one of these terminals and set up a command shell, I'll be able to talk with you that way and guide you through. I might even be able to take over one of the characters if we spend enough time on this…"
"One thing at a time, you dork." Julia smirked.
"Oh come on," Veronica laughed. "They're computers, I'm a hacker, let me have this. Between you and me, the system won't know what hit it."
-0-
Tuesday, October 10, 2277
? - ?
06:00
"Well, well, well," said the Doc, back in the counselor's guise once more. "What am I to do now?"
"Let me and my dad go?" Julia asked, sitting next to Veronica's avatar on the therapy couch. "And the other people you have stuck in here."
"Also, go fuck yourself," Veronica's avatar interjected. "Use something rusty."
"NPCs don't get opinions," he chided her. "And you know I can't let you go. You've seen and done too much to the sanctity of my project, not to mention your value as research subjects."
"What research?" Julia asked. "And now that we're on the subject, who are you anyway?"
"Ah yes, I suppose in all this chaos, I've neglected to introduce myself," he stood, and gave a polite little bow. "My name is Stanislaus Braun."
"Wow, I've actually heard of you," At Veronica's quizzical look, Julia continued. "They called him Vault-Tec's 'Sorcerer Scientist', dreaming up one technological marvel after another. He worked on developing some new alloy for the military, made breakthroughs on robobrain technology, and he even invented a matter reconfiguration system that can turn radioactive earth into lush farmland. That's probably what my Dad's looking for, come to think of it."
"Yes, he did ask me about the G.E.C.K. when he arrived," Braun nodded, beginning to pace. "The Garden of Eden Creation Kit, a miracle of miracles. They say God created the Heavens and Earth in six days, but now, here comes Doctor Braun to do it in six minutes!"
"That's incredible." Julia said despite herself.
"It's useless!" the doctor roared. "I create a device that uses more energy than an average fusion bomb to restore a tiny piece of land and they call me a God for it. All to prop up their blasted 'Future-Tec' program - utter nonsense, the lot of it."
"So you're.. Not a genius?" Julia hedged.
"Oh no, liebchen," he chuckled, pausing to look directly into her eyes. "I am a genius. Despite its status as.. juvenalia, the G.E.C.K. was groundbreaking in its own way. But its primary purpose was to catalyze my true passion - I wanted to create a new world."
He began to pace again, gesturing energetically.
"But not just to reorganize the old one. Our world had been hopelessly polluted by nonsense and blather from the very beginning. Best to start anew in a place where I wouldn't be bothered. Where I could actually ply my skills without some schwein in a suit chattering about overstepping myself, or worse - the ones who insisted on telling the world every time I bend over and fart. Is this not the American dream? I simply wanted my own little slice of reality with its white picket fence. Dog optional."
"I'd always had a gift for assembling rules, laws if you will. My work led me to the field of computer science and my Vault-Tec contacts soon brought me into the world of simulated realities. Before a year had passed since my first "Hello" world, I'd created entire cities of simulated people. I walked among them as their God, and how could they fail to love me for it? However, I quickly realized a crucial flaw in my plans - I am simply not possessed of the creative spark. Creating new technologies, surely - but a compelling narrative? An interesting world? These are beyond me, even now. Fortunately, the analysts at Future-Tec provided my answer."
"Oh god," Veronica's avatar said. "Your 'test subjects'."
"Ja," Braun smirked. "If you think my own projects are horrible, you should see what they did to those other Vaults. I only took eight souls for my new Eden, they damned millions. But this is not about them, I think? I used my status to have them create this vault to my specifications, and arrange delivery of my test subjects when the bombs finally were set to drop. It was a simple matter to divert them here, and almost before I knew it, they and I were sealed in. As the world outside was destroyed, my own was taking its first breaths. I had never been so happy. But even then, there were problems. My subjects were utter dullards, the worst example of anodyne suburban trash people you could imagine. They breathed more color into my worlds than I could have alone, but not very much and certainly not enough to offset their blathering. I soon learned to coerce them into at least playing roles as needed. And given enough time, I was able to convince them to accept their new reality."
"Mass delusion as the foundation of a new world." Julia realized.
"Precisely," the doctor nodded. "The mind thinks what I want them to think. They serve their purpose, now. This brings me, however, to the key question - what do I do with you? You are nowhere near as boring as the others, and if nothing else your mind is a rich library of new concepts and places and forms. Yoking your consciousness as I did the others would be a horrific waste. I see now my initial reaction was an error - I tried to simply get you in via immersion, but your mind rebelled. I tried to get you in via the fantastic, but your friend here rebelled."
Veronica's avatar waved cheerfully.
"So now, I will ask you openly," he said, ignoring her. "Will you join me in running this world? No more tricks or deception, you will be as I am here - omnipotent and unquestioned. Help me create a perfect world for science and intellectual curiosity to rule the day! A mind is a terrible thing to waste, no?"
"It's definitely an interesting idea," Julia mused. "And I can't claim that the prospect of complete control over reality isn't something I'd like to play around with. But there's just two problems. One, you're a complete fruit loop."
"Not unfair," Braun chuckled. "I have long since made peace with my utter lack of morality. It need not be a hindrance. Fight me, work with me, all is one when it comes to making things interesting."
"Well, there's also the other thing," Julia noted. "Namely, this isn't real."
"What is 'real'?" the Doctor asked. "Your so-called 'real world' is an illusion fed to you through holes in your skull and assembled by three pounds of electric fat. Right now, they're not even doing that - they're only seeing what I tell them. Here, I decide what is real and what is not."
He took off his glasses and sighed wearily. "You need not decide now. The pod will sustain your life for at least the length of the half-life of our uranium piles - plenty of time to change your mind. And it is not, as they say, as if you have anywhere to be."
He snapped his fingers and Veronica's avatar winked out. "No more interruptions though, ja? Sit and think about what you've done. I will be back in a month to check on your progress."
He stood and tried to open the office door - to no success.
"What in-?"
"UNABLE TO OPEN DOOR," said a booming voice from every direction, "PLEASE CONFIRM COMMAND"
"Yes, yes, open the damn door!" he said impatiently. "Damn that hacker friend of yours, I'll be sweeping up after her for years."
The world flickered briefly.
"UNABLE TO OPEN DOOR," said the system's voice again. "COMMAND ORIGINATES FROM A SOURCE THAT SUCKS VERY BADLY."
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded of the distant sky. "I said to open the door! Change map! Coc vault112a? Verify identity!"
"DOCTOR STANISLAUS BRAUN," said the computer. "USER."
"What?!" he said. "I am a root administrator!"
"WRONG" said the booming voice again, before Veronica's avatar shimmered back into being.
"You really should make sure you're talking to the right door before you send your admin credentials," she said, smirking. "For you see, there will always be a power higher than you here."
"Nonsense," he said, advancing on her. "Nonsense! I created this world! It belongs to me! What power could be higher than I?"
"Physical access," Veronica said, taking Julia's hand. "Bitch."
"How.. how dare you?" the doctor said in a quavering voice before visibly composing himself. "This world is mine. My sanctuary. My triumph. My magnum op-"
"This world is a pillow fort you can go and hide in so all the idiots of the world stop bothering you." Veronica interrupted. "You're not special, Doctor."
She snapped her fingers and the walls started to fade out.
"You live in a cardboard box, Braun." she said with a wicked grin. "Your gods are the rats."
The world dissolved around them as the doctor screamed.
-0-
Tuesday, October 10, 2277
Smith Casey's Garage - Break Room
15:27
"God," James Mateus said shakily, taking a sip of water. "I know I'd only been in there for a month but it feels like years. Thank you for saving me."
"Good thing I snuck out too, isn't it?" Julia asked sarcastically. "Just imagine what'd have happened if I did the sane thing and stayed inside like you wanted me to, eh?"
"I shudder to think," he chuckled ruefully. "Not that knowing you've been out here in the wasteland doing God knows what for the last month makes me feel much better. How about you tell me a bit of what you've been up to before we get going?"
"Well, you remember how the Vault always had something of a radroach problem, right?" she began.