Assume that Pip-Boys were a bit more intuitive than in game for this story. I know of some features I would have definitely added to a portable computer that fits to the arm.
Chapter One: A Brave New World
A cough, then a few more. A flash of light and the view of a pipeline on the ceiling.
Pain.
Pain everywhere.
Abel wheezed out a host of dust-particles and gasped in a deep, deep breath. Above him, a broken pipeline on the ceiling screamed as steam escaped from it by a hole in the body of one of the pipes. Beyond that, everything was blurry for a few moments, but he eventually managed to blink the dust and dreariness from his eyes to see that he was inside the fallout shelter that he had made his way to prior to the first detonations.
His brows furrowed a bit at that recognition, and his mind kicked into gear. He had just witnessed a nuclear detonation less than a few miles away, and had even been knocked back by the shockwave. The impact, blast, or radiation each should have killed him in their own rights, but even though he was feeling quite strained due to having been unconscious in one position for a while, he felt perfectly fine. He remembered feeling his skin crack, but upon looking down at his hands, he saw that they were perfectly fine- he was even missing a blemish on the back of his left hand.
His left arm held an object with a glowing green light, the Pip-Boy 3000X Prototype, which every field or flag officer (retired or otherwise) was required to equip following Operation: Anchorage after a mandate in June of 2077 for training and emergency reasons. It was most certainly useful before the bombs fell, but he was unsure if it would function properly after what it had just gone through. He raised it up to his face and winced at the bright green light before turning off the over-bright mode and swapping to the data section to check the date and time.
All of his extremities were in pristine condition according to the Pip-Boy, and his vitals were perfectly healthy. That was at least reassuring. He switched to the settings and found the general statistics section, where he selected "date and time," and immediately felt his face blanch white. The date presented to him by his little piece of RobCo tech was August 17, 2277. Considering that he had headed to the shelter and saw bombs drop on October 23, 2077, that was a bad sign. Either his Pip-Boy was off, or he had been out for 200 years.
He shook his head and gathered his wits. Humans didn't live that long, so there was no way he was officially 235 years old. Abel checked the logs of the Pip-Boy for errors or something that would indicate that the device was broken, but he wasn't sure if he was confident enough to say that it was. From what he had seen and worked on, the 3000 model Pip-Boys were indestructible and practically malfunction-proof. His fears were confirmed when he saw an error dated for October 23, 2077 that listed severe injuries and radiation levels, and then thousands of entries listing "slight healing," or "radiation level decrease," or "no change" every day for 200 years.
Upon closer examination, he concluded from what he knew about nuclear weapons (more than most in the US Armed Forces) and medicine (a course was required for officers later in the war) that these reports were mostly consistent with receding radiation over a long time period, but that his injuries seemed to heal in an inordinately short amount of time. By all accounts, he should have been dead or at least comatose and then died after slamming headfirst into the wall at the speed of a nuclear shockwave, but the report showed that his vital signs and extremities fully recovered within a week.
So how had he survived in a cave with no food, water, or movement for 200 years? That just wasn't scientifically possible for a human to do.
After pondering over this question for a few moments, he came to no conclusion and instead decided it was time to at least check on the outside world. If it had really been 200 years, he would be able to move around a bit so long as he stayed out of the ground-zero zone of the bomb that hit his hometown. If it hadn't been 200 years and his device was incorrect, then he'd hopefully be killed by the radiation as it was supposed to be the first time around. It was a beneficial scenario in either direction, and so he headed to the personal armory and geared up.
"Only the best for our boys in the Armed Forces... Yeah, right, but only for us officers, even the retired ones. The guys under us didn't stand a chance. Damned bureaucrats," he grumbled as he stumbled into his stockpile of government-funded, high-condition weapons, ammunition, and armor. The folks in D.C. had been happy to fund a fallout shelter for one of their top-performing officers, but if he'd asked them to build another for the enlisted men that had lived on his street, they would have had a cow. It didn't matter, because none of his friends had gone up to the shelter with him on the day of the detonations, which no one had predicted, but the thought was what mattered.
Abel looked out over the heap of items and had trouble deciding what he wanted to take with him. Of course, he was definitely going to take the laser rifle and its child weapon, the laser pistol, but he didn't know what else to grab. He fumbled his hands over a few weapons before deciding on what he was to take.
He ended up taking the laser weapons, an assault rifle, and an old .45ACP pistol, his sidearm from his service before he'd been put on "indefinite leave of absence." That was code for "requested leave for a week and received a retirement notice instead." He also somehow managed to fit his ammo stocks into his inventory of sorts, despite having a shitload of the stuff lying around. That was one of the things he loved about the Pip-Boy; somehow, following putting it on, he found he could carry around the littlest things in massive amounts without getting bogged down. He wasn't sure about how that worked, but figured no one else was either now that they were dead, so he supposed it didn't matter enough to dwell on it.
He put his weapons up against the wall at the end of the armory and tapped a four-number code into a keypad, looking up with nostalgic eyes as a pod containing his old service armor, a prototype set of combat armor with an underfitting body-glove. As much as he hated abusing the perks of his service, he did enjoy the armor, at least. The suit was a test provided by the government to the special forces in the late area of the war, and had an artificial intelligence system that would make calculations for bullet-drop and other such combat necessities, though the only thing it was good for otherwise was conversation. It was a trial meant to prove a concept before installing a modified version of it into the old T-45d power-armor sets.
He ran his hand over the chest-piece of the armor before patting it on the shoulder and tugging the entire thing off of the rack. The first thing to do would be to put on the body-glove, which he did with ease, and then to attach each of the interlocking plates of combat armor. The grieves and gauntlets were the most difficult to put on, especially since it was normally expected for one's squadmates to assist with the grieves, but Abel managed to put them on himself following years of experience with them. The final pieces were the balaclava and helmet. He tugged up the balaclava from the neck of the body-glove and looked at the inside of his helmet, where most of the computing tech for the AI resided. With a slight bit of hesitation, he slipped it over his head, fastened the helmet's chin-buckle, and put the goggles over his eyes.
With a shaky hand, he reached up and put his finger on the on-switch for the AI, holding it there for what felt like a full hour before heaving a heavy sigh and pushing the button, watching as his goggles polarized to the exact lighting around him and showed him statistics such as humidity and wind levels.
"Combat Artificial Intelligence designation November ready for duty! What a fine day to die a red-blooded American! Operator, provide identification and operation number!" Abel heard in his headset.
"Brevet-Colonel Abel Jenners, operation number eight-oh-nine-three-oh-oh. It's great to be back again, CAIN," Abel replied, hearing the armor plates of his suit lock into place at his designation, the systems of the suit coming fully online and the interface of his goggles flashing with the words "AUTHORIZATION ACCEPTED" before the grizzly face of an enlisted man appeared in the top-right section of his goggles, his lips moving as if to emulate the words his suit said to him next.
"Authorization successful, Brevet-Colonel Jenners. Master Sergeant Cain reporting for duty, sir!" The animated man in the heads-up display snapped a salute and Abel imagined him going into parade-rest after relaxing it. He decided to verify everything before setting out and took a deep breath before asking the question that he already knew the answer to.
"CAIN, what is the current year?" Abel asked, looking up at the face of the enlisted man as he simulated a man bringing up a data-pad to check.
"Sir, according to my systems, it is currently August 17, 2277. You look like a tough son-of-a-bitch for a 235 year old," the suit answered back to him within a few seconds, getting a long-winded sigh out of Abel and a simulated cough of awkwardness from the AI. Instead of answering, Abel stared at a wall for about a minute before storming toward the front door of the fallout shelter.
He hit the opening mechanism, and watched as the door slid open. The light was nearly blinding.