Chapter 7: Vacate

Entering into a storage room Rep locked the door then broke the panel using the butt of the pistol. Ariel looked around, "This is a dead end! How are you going to get to the exit from here?" She looked back to where he was and found him not there, "Lee?"

"Over here!" She looked to where his voice rang out and found him taking the barrel of his gun and tapping on the wall panels. She raised an eyebrow, "What are you doing?" "There's a couple of false wall panels in here. I'm trying to find…" TINK! From behind a set of boxes one of the walls sounded hollow. Rep tapped it a few more times to confirm, "Bingo! Ari, help me move these boxes!"

Elsewhere in the Vault the Overseer was soot covered, soaked, and breathing from an oxygen mask. Inside the primary medical facility several of the guards that were with the Overseer were being bandaged up and given various types of fluids. A lot of the guards didn't survive the encounter. Mitch had ran into the medical facility and saw the sea of carnage before him; the smell almost made him vomit.

Mitch saw his father sitting on a medical cot waving him over. The younger man rushed over and spoke, "My God, what the hell happened to everyone?" "Lee did all of this," the old man said under the mask, "We found out he was responsible for last night's reactor SCRAM. He took control of my terminal and did it in preparation of an escape after finishing one last thing."

It was all too confusing for Mitch, "What in the hell are you talking about, Dad?"

"Mitch, son, brace yourself," he removed his oxygen mask, "Lee killed Ariel last night. The man's finally lost his mind and he's taking out everyone he knows including the Vault's reactor operators and his own repair detail. He almost took me out on top of it." The old man looked off to the side, emotion filling his voice, "Poor kid, he was saying just yesterday his life was coming to an end. Should have taken that as a sign." He looked to his son, but what he saw was nothing close to what he expected.

Mitch had anger in his eyes. With all the stuff he had heard from his father and what he knew from his Overseer training he was trying to hold something back. The Overseer saw angry judgment coming from his own son's eyes. The intensity within them could burn holes through concrete; through the walls of their very Vault itself. Others around believed the old man, but that look from Mitch told how well he accepted that story. Without saying so much as a word more, Mitch walked out of the medical bay, an air of darkness surrounding the man.

A very young and large-chested woman in a Vault lab coat walked up beside the Overseer and commented, "He's taking it a lot harder than I thought he would. I thought he didn't want to marry Ariel."

"Cindy," the Overseer said annoyed, "Go and tend to the others, please?"

"Jesus, what the hell's in this thing?" Ariel had her shoulder against the crate pushing it away from the wall. Rep was beside her with his back against the box using his legs to power shift it away from the wall, "Water recycling processor chips. Shipment of one thousand."

"How many of these things do we go through?"

"One every 70 years, I think." they both got the box far enough away from the wall and stopped pushing. Rep took out the screwdriver part of his knife and went to undo the screws in the corners of the wall plate, "If all's well, those dummy screws I put here are still here." With a quarter turn the screw popped out and fell to the floor. He picked it up and saw that the screw had a short shaft on it, "Good!" After popping the other screws, the panel fell forward revealing another passage.

After ushering Ariel in and securing the panel back with tack welds from his plasma pistol, Rep activated his overbright mode again followed by Ariel activating hers. The passage was dusty and littered with construction debris. Rep started ahead as Ariel came up behind, "What is this place?" "It's an old construction passage from when the Vault was built. Vault-Tec had these put in so they could work on multiple floors at once and transport materials to the lower sections quicker. It goes all the way to the main exit."

"How do you know about this place?"

"I was the chief engineer's son; I always pawed around Pop's plans and blueprints. Place came in handy for hide-n-seek. After a while, the other kids stopped asking me to play."

"You mean you never made out with Wendy Bellandi here at age 15?" Rep looked to Ariel to find her with a smirk on her face, the green hue of the light making her look devious.

"With Wendy? Hell no," he responded, "We always went to ventilation," he returned the smirk back. She playfully rolled her eyes as he continued, "Besides, if I had, she'd be shooting her mouth off right now about where we are."

The smirk left Ariel's face, "Lee, Wendy died three years ago."

Rep stopped, her following suit. He had a look of thought on his face, "Oh, yeah, the toaster incident."

"This place is so bad, even the shelving fails."

"Well, she was trying to make toast and do dishes at the same time. Why they put the toaster over the sink…" The two of them looked at each other with perplexed looks on their faces, then Rep shook his head, "We need to get the fuck outta this place." The engineer took Ariel by the hand and pressed forward.

The Overseer had been released from the medical bay and was now back in his office. Beside him were reports from security, and before him was a bottle of whiskey and a drinking glass. The older man was cradling his head in his hands when the door buzzer went off. "I said I didn't want to be disturbed!" the Overseer yelled into the intercom on his desk. The door clicked then opened, Mitch standing in the doorway, "Dad, we have to talk."

The man snapped, "Not now! I got chaos up the fucking ass here!"

Mitch stepped into the door, "Dad, we're talkin', and we're doing it now!" The younger man hit the door controls, effectively halting anything to be said from leaving the room.

An electrical panel opened exposing fuses lined in a row within it. Rep unscrewed the one fuse from the box to inspect it, "Fuck, it's out!"

Ariel looked nervously down the hallway as she asked, "What? What's 'out'?" "There's an old construction elevator down the hall. The fuse for it's screwed," with that Rep dropped the fuse to the floor, "We're gonna have to climb otherwise."

Ariel walked up to the panel and looked at the fuse panel. She noted the side of the socket, "Lee, what's the point of a fuse again?"

"They're used as a weak point so wiring doesn't catch fire when there's a power surge." She looked at him, "So, you can just stick any ol' piece of metal in there, right?" Rep understood, "Yeah! Like a nail, or…"

"...A bottle cap." Rep looked at her as eureka graced his face. He dug into his RobCo bag and pulled out his remaining Nuka Cola. He popped the cap off with his knife then handed the bottle to her, "Drink it; you're gonna need the energy." As she drank the drink and after him scraping the paint off the cap, Rep gathered two small pieces of 2x4 and stood on them insulating himself. "Here we go!" he stuck the cap into the socket and forced it in until there was a massive spark that shot out of the hole. Rep pulled his hand away and yelled in agony as he shook his hand.

A metallic clank was heard down the hall as abandoned work lights turned on around the Vault Dwellers. As the dim lights in turn lit up the two of them turned off their overbright modes, "What do ya know," Rep said bemused, still shaking his hand, "That's twice bottle caps saved me today. That would of hurt a helluva lot less if I wasn't sweating so damn bad." They approached the oversized platform elevator, closed the gate behind them, and activated the platform. The motor hummed loudly as it lazily lifted the two of them up, a sign the device hasn't been used in some time.

As they ascended, Ariel was thinking of what would happen on the outside. She had an even bigger pit in her stomach thinking of walking out of the Vault than she did just 20 minutes before thinking she was about to die. It was an odd reaction, to say the least. She looked to Rep and could tell he felt the same; rocking back and forth on his sneaker-boot-clad feet looking up the elevator shaft, he bumped his clenched fists together nervously. The tension was becoming too much on their slow ascent, "Do you know how to open the main door, Lee?"

Rep turned his attention from the elevator shaft to the woman before him, "Yeah. Me, Pop, and even my grandpa did 'All-Clear' drills on the door. We get the door activator arm up to the door and simulate the door opening."

"Did you ever actually open the door?"

"Hell no! Didn't want contaminants getting in." The silence fell upon them briefly before Ariel started again, "What do you think it'll be like outside?"

"Donno," he removed the hat and wiped his forehead of sweat again, "2077 was a long time ago," he placed the hat back on, "Maybe nature took back over."

"You mean, green trees? Pretty flowers, perhaps?" Ariel had always dreamed of seeing flowers. The very thought put a smile on her face. She had always wished they had included more color films in the Vault; her favorite movie of all time was a super old movie called The Wizard Of Oz which in one scene there was a colorful field of poppies. The flowers were fake and technically poisonous, being put there by the Wicked Witch, but it was still a visual idea she held onto.

The young woman let out a hopeful sigh. Rep had said what he did to not scare her away from the idea of the outside world, especially since his idea of what might await them was far more bleak; dead land; irradiated water; hungry and hostile animals. Rep had a very different idea of what was to happen. Still, it might not be that bad. Knowing the engineer as well as she did, she always knew what he really thought and knew how to bring him out of it, "Hey, whether it looks like Emerald City or not, as long as we're together," she stepped closer to him and caressed his face, "it'll all be okay." They looked to each other, her smiling. At that moment, Rep wondered if he was even close to doing the right thing.

The elevator squealed as it came to the top of the shaft. It stopped with a loud CLUNK! Shaking as it did. Opening the gate they walked onto the dusty unfinished ground that led to a dead end of sorts. "This is it," Rep said, taking out his knife again, "beyond this wall is the entrance hallway; point of no return. You ready?" Ariel nodded her head, worry encroaching her face.

Unfolding the blade, Rep shoved the knife in between the steel plates and dragged it down, "Cheap bastards glued these plates into place instead of using screws. Lucky for us."

"Lee," Ariel's nerves were starting to get the better of her, "what about security? Wouldn't they be waiting for us at the Vault door?" "Not likely," Rep replied, continuing to cut along the bottom of the plates, "Overseer most likely has damn near everyone else looking for us leaving the dumbest guy behind to guard outside the door. Seeing I knocked out Paul Meeker at the reactor checkpoint, that leaves Joey the Juicebox Boy."

"You mean that creepy guy with the lisp?"

"Yep, the only security officer that's as deaf as a support pillar," with that Rep kicked the wall down. Rep poked his head out with his pistol drawn. The wall was part of the operator's booth just to the side of the large cog-shaped door. The door leading into the hallway was indeed closed, "Coast is clear," he headed out of the wall opening and to the computer in the booth.

Sitting down to the terminal he began typing in his credentials only to give him, "ACCESS DENIED" scrolled across the screen, "Fuck!"

"What's wrong?" asked the young redhead, walking up behind the engineer to see. "Fucking Overseer must of removed my access to the system! I'm locked out!" "What?!" Ariel's voice squeaked as a sudden twinge of panic welled up into her chest, "After all of that, we're trapped?!"

Rep turned to her to see she was beginning to panic. He stood from the chair and held her by the shoulders, "Ari - Ari, I need you to get ahold of yourself! I can still get us out!" She looked at him perplexed. He went into his bag and pulled out the green notebook, "This is my family's secret weapon. This Vault would have been dead a century ago without the information in here. It's going to get us - and a whole lot more - out of here." Ariel looked to Rep and saw that look in his eyes again; he was set on his path. It restored her sense of calm. She nodded, "Let's do it!"

A small smirk of relief briefly glinted across Rep's face as he saw her worry and panic subside completely; she was truly ready to leave the Vault and had more than enough faith in his ability to do it. Turning back to his task he opened the notebook and looked for what he needed as he sat at the terminal, "Alright, once the door opening sequence starts, we're gonna be running up a massive red flag on our position," he found the information he needed and started typing frantically, "Once that door opens even a crack, we're gone."

As Rep worked, Ariel looked around the room for something. Back in the construction pathway she saw something on the floor. She eyed it up, "Hey Lee, are you sure that Joey guy would be the one outside?"

"I'd bet the farm on it. Despite having a thick skull, security couldn't give him a helmet because his head was too big."

"Well," Ariel said, picking up the object she saw, "you're almost never wrong."

"Hey, other than the fact palin' around with the Overseer was bad for my health, I got to know his security detail rather well." PSST! Rep heard a door open. He spun around in the chair to find Ariel had opened the door to the hallway. Indeed, there stood in the door was an oafish-looking guard with a large head and no helmet. The young woman had in her hand a length of lead pipe. Just as quickly as Rep processed the scene before him, Ariel hit the guard in the head as hard as she could with the pipe. He jumped from the chair, "Ariel! Jesus Christ, what the fuck are you doing?!"

The guard fell backward with a thud. Ariel gave the man a hard kick to the side as well, "Piece of shit was the one that told the Overseer you were in my quarters last night; he bound me up, too!" With one last kick she got her satisfaction. Rep rushed toward the door and started dragging the guard into the room. In a hushed voice, he berated her, "You can't do stuff like that! What if I was wrong and the guy had a helmet? He would have radioed his buddies, and I barely got started in there!"

"I'm sorry, I just…"

Rep dropped the guard, panting hard, "J-just hold off on your homicidal rage until we get out, okay?" He quickly turned to the door control and closed the door again, then looked back to her, "Grab his pistol." Rep walked past the guard and went to the terminal as Ariel took the 10mm pistol from her earlier captor.

Clicking of keys was heard as Rep typed at rapid pace. The terminal let out a few negative-sounding beeps before an upbeat beep-BEEP! emanated from the device, "We have a winner! Get ready!" Ariel walked down the stairs to the main Vault door as Rep quickly made way to the Vault Door Control Pod, weakly hopping over the knocked out security officer on the floor, "Okay, the door extraction arm is gonna come down, so watch your head. In three… two… one!" The engineer pulled the lever and immediately every type of siren activated throughout the Vault.

Elsewhere in the Vault, the klaxons sounded as the Overseer was briefing a group of security guards holding a blueprint of the Vault. The P.A. System sounded, "Vault Door Cycling Sequence Initiated." Every couple of seconds the message would repeat. The Overseer looked to the speakers as the message sounded, "They're at the main entrance!" "How the fuck did they get there?" Asked an extremely confused guard. The Overseer muttered to himself, "I should of killed Stella when she was pregnant with the little fucker!" he turned to the guards, "Move it!"

The arm pivoted down from the ceiling of the room and protruded a worm gear shaft that hooked itself into the door. "Okay," Rep called down, "The worm gear is gonna pull back the door into the keyway and roll it out of the way. That thing starts moving, we bolt!"

"What about security?" Ariel asked.

"They won't follow. They're piss-scared of going outside," he looked to the pod and saw the display for the door extractor, "Aaaaaand, go worm gear!" The motor whirled and the door started moving; sparks flew as metal rubbed on metal. The door was halfway pulled out…

It stopped.

A loud strained buzzing noise came from the large motor, then silence.

"Oh, crap!" Ariel looked back at the engineer, eyes wide, "Why'd the door stop?" Rep was messing with dials on the pod trying to figure out an answer to her question, "Shit! We're not getting enough power to the motor! Goddamn Vault experiment!" He moved from the control pod back to the terminal room, "I have to activate the emergency microfusion charge system!" Ariel came up from her position as he sat at the terminal and started accessing the emergency power systems, "Lee, they're coming!"

"I know that, goddamnit!" Rep typed faster than he's ever typed before. A hum started to emanate from around them. When the graphic came on to the screen in the form of a charge bar, it gave a warning that the microfusion cells were too low and that a full charge would take over a minute. Rep hit the side of the monitor several times swearing as he did, "Fuck! We don't have enough time!" He took off his glasses and put his paling head into his hands, a whimper was heard, "I got you killed!" Rep looked up to the door with a thousand-year stare, "I'm so sorry, Ari… This is all my fault."

The boots of Vault security were fast approaching. Ariel looked to the hallway door, then back to the man before her. She did this several times, "Y-you're not giving up, are you, Lee?"

"If I hadn't stopped by your quarters, you'd have been left alone. You'd still have a full life." "Lee, a life where I didn't know you were safe is not a life I want."

Rep blinked out of his stare and turned to her, "What?"

"Lee," she knelt down to be even with him, "I never got to say it, even after everything," she grabbed his worn, rough hand, "but thank you for everything you've ever done for me; you worked harder to care for me than anyone else in this Vault, and for that, I love you." Ariel grabbed him by the back of his head and gently pulled him into a kiss.

It had felt like forever since Rep had kissed her. Many years of misplaced hatred for something she never did - the fact she forgave him on the spot - he knew she was very special. He never wanted this moment to end.

She broke the kiss before him. He slowly opened his eyes and for the first time in years, she was clear in his vision without the aid of his glasses. In seeing her, he looked into her eyes; her eyes were filling with a deepening sadness. She spoke softly with a tremble in her voice, "Lee, be safe out there, okay?" She quickly stood up and made her way to the hallway door drawing the 10mm pistol.

It was happening so fast. As she moved away from Rep as his vision began to blur again when it hit him what her words meant, "No! No, Ariel, don't… oof!" He went to stand and move after her, but because he had his glasses removed, he tripped over the unconscious guard and hit the floor.

He heard the door open as he tried to put his glasses on; she spoke to him one last time, "Lee, thank you for saving my life… and being a part of it." Just as Rep finally got his glasses on she disappeared through the hallway door. Scrambling to his feet he called out to her, "Ariel!" Getting to the door he heard the boots of security approach. Stepping out he saw her flowing red hair as she ran down the hall and around the corner, "Ariel!"

"Halt! Stay where you are!" Yelling of all kinds roared from the corner. All he could see was Ariel's shadow against the adjacent wall. He watched as she dropped the pistol and held up her hands by way of the shadow. His heart was pounding for what he saw and heard next to happen; he very badly didn't want it to, but he couldn't look away. Several plasma rifles charged up as a man yelled out, "Remember your orders! Fire!"

"ARIEL!"

Several flashes of plasma discharge blew past her shadow and from out of the corner. When firing stopped, her shadow stood, but only briefly. She fell to her knees, then collapsed forward onto the floor. Ariel Townsend's life had come to an end.

Rep was absolutely beside himself. Time slowed as he had difficulty trying to breathe, or even blink. Standing in the hallway just outside the main Vault door, the man was numb to the world. He had lost another soul in his life; a soul he had saved all those years ago just sacrificed itself for him. He was starting to drift.

SCREEEEEECH! The worm gear on the door extraction arm sprang to life and finished pulling the Vault door out. It began rolling out of the way showing the cave to the outside world. Rep looked to the door and saw salvation, "Oh my God," he looked back to the hallway, "Ariel…"

Security rounded the corner and started shooting at him. Two bolts whizzed by knocking him back to his senses, "Whoa, Nelly!" Running into the room, he grabbed the green notebook by the terminal and ran down the stairs to the door.

Two guards were running right behind him only to trip over their unconscious friend sending the barrels of their guns into the floor. A third guard looked back and saw Rep running in the cave outside the large hole where the door would sit. He lined up his sights, knelt down, and was actively pulling the trigger…

The door rolled into the way absorbing the bolt. The guard looked back and saw Mitch at the door control pod, his hand on the handle with it in the close position. The guard spoke, "Why'd you do that, sir? I had a bead on him!"

Mitch looked rather shaken as it was. That look had appeared on his face again, but this time more worn in; it was of anger and sadness. He looked to have buried his best friend, "Don't waste ammo on him. He's outside now," he turned away from the pod, "besides, we have hurt people to tend to," With that, Mitch walked out of the Vault entrance room, guards picking themselves up and hauling the bigger guard out in his wake.

Outside the door, Rep stopped as the door moved from its track into its proper place. He looked back as the lights that came from the entrance hall dimmed as the door slid back into place. He watched the light shine through the cracks until the last, finally enveloping him in darkness. Leroy Robert "Rep" Kluge had vacated Vault 53, but at a terrible price.

He quickly walked back and activated his Pip-Boy's overbright mode to see the large metal door, emblazoned on the outside with the number "53" in yellow; the same number on his back. He placed his hand on the door, the cold steel almost burning his hand. He took off his hat and spoke aloud, tears filling his eyes and a tremble in his voice. The thought of the words hurt, "Good-bye, Pop; I tried my best to do what you would do. I guess I went too far," he closed his eyes and tilted his head, "Good-bye Ariel; you gave me meaning in my life, and loved me when no one else would. I will always love you."

He looked up to the number on the door, "All of you have shown me what I need to do. I will come back for you. All of you. I will not let Vault-Tec kill any more people. I promise." Removing his hand, the tired, sick, and battered former Vault engineer turned and walked the cave.

After walking a ways, from up above him he saw a light shine down through a hole in the ceiling of the cave. It was almost angelic how bright it was. He put the hat on his head and looked back to the hole again. There was this feeling in his heart that told him this was his final destination. He walked into the light and looked up, a silent nod of his head indicating his decision.

Rep's life was truly not easy; all it did was get harder, and all for trying to do the right thing. He knew it was going to get worse from here, and that he had a large task ahead of him. He didn't know what he was going to encounter out there, but he knew what lay beyond was not going to be Emerald City…

But that is another story.

The End