"Could one of you take me to Big Town?"
The young man in a party hat explained that once you were sixteen years of age, you were booted out of Little Lamplight and forced to go to Big Town. Sylvia offered to escort him, and told Charon he could remain here on the account that Dogmeat go with her for some sort of protection.
Meanwhile, Juliet was attempting to meet every child she could lay her eyes on. Somehow, it made her feel closer to her sister and Charon's sister... people of the past.
The first one was a six year old girl of Hispanic descent. "I'm Betty, but everyone calls me Bumble." She introduced.
Juliet silently whimpered. Betty. Braun. Vault-Tec.
She knelt down and pulled Bumble into a hug. "Are you okay?" The child asked, sounding very startled.
"Big people are weird," the doctor who went by Lucy rolled her eyes. When Juliet pulled herself together, she asked about the origins of Little Lamplight. "There are some holotapes in here and some at the gift shop," Lucy answered. "They're from the big people and kids who were here first."
With that, Juliet eagerly searched for said holotapes. She didn't have any way to listen to them... did she? She held the holotape on her palm until her brain mentally clicked, and the recording played in her thoughts, just like Amata's broadcast.
My name is Carrie Delaney. I teach fourth grade at Early Dawn Elementary School, in Washington, D.C. Yesterday, October 23, 2077, half the school went on a field trip to Lamplight Caverns. We were packing up to leave when... when everything went crazy. The caves started shaking... the lights went out... the kids started screaming. My God... Mr. Pollack and Julia went outside to see what was going on... When they came back in, they told us what they saw. Clouds. Mushroom clouds. It's finally happened. The end of the world.
Juliet was beside herself - JULIA! It felt so good to hear someone speak of her. Proof she existed. Proof she wasn't going crazy after all. She was definitely going to show Sylvia this recording.
As she walked out of the office building, Charon tried to warn her about the boy who-
Clunk.
"Hey there!" The boy with the mining helmet and goggles yelped. "Do you have any Nuka-Cola? Even a little bit of it? Can I have some? Be your best friend! Totally honest! Not lying! Not a little bit!"
"I don't have any?" Juliet replied with vague humor.
"Oh, okay! See you later!" With that, the boy turned and ran off into the caverns. Juliet scratched her head in slight confusion as Charon approached her.
"Juliet." He attempted to clear his throat.
"Yes?" She looked up at the tall, red ghoul.
"What shall we do?"
"What do you mean?"
"Sylvia entrusted you with me until she returns. What shall we do?"
Juliet felt very hot as her face turned a bright red. "W-w-w... we're going to the gift shop!" She blurted. That was not what she wanted to say at all, but she wasn't sure how he was going to react. "I want to listen to the recordings of the kids who were here when..."
"When what?"
"When the bombs fell. Don't you remember? C-Charlie and Jade went here for a field trip."
Charon blankly replied with, "I can't remember."
Juliet frowned and began her trek to the gift shop, escorted by Sue, or Knock Knock as she preferred. The souvenir shop was ran by Knock Knock's twin brother, Nick, or simply 'Knick Knack'.
"Huh," Charon was briefly amused by the nicknames.
There were three holotapes on the back shelf inside the shop. Two of them were recorded by a one Jason Grant. The other was recorded by-
"CHARLIE!" Juliet yelped. "Charon, your sister made this recording!"
"I can't remember." Charon repeated. Juliet wanted to ask how could he even remember? He wasn't here when it happened. Instead, she did her Vault-Tec magic and held the holotape in her hands tightly, transmitting the data to her brain.
My name is Charlie. I live in Lamplight Caverns, but a lot of the kids decided to change it to Little Lamplight, because we're all little. The grown ups left us, but that's okay. We're fine without them. I've been waiting for my big brother, Charon, to come rescue me, but he hasn't came. He's not going to be here. The grown ups in the vault we found won't let us in. I say forget them all, we will be fine! Right, Jade?
Um... yeah, if Charlie says we're gonna be okay, then we're gonna be okay.
Juliet felt so blessed to hear both of their voices again. A second later she had a horrible thought. Why weren't there any grown ups? Where was Julia? She... did she abandon them-? No! Never! Something must have happened... and no one was ever going to know what it was.
"Charon, you'll have to listen to this when Sylvia gets back." She decided. "Charlie talked about you."
Again, he said, "I can't remember."
"Can't remember what?" Juliet finally asked. "Charlie?"
"I can't remember."
"How can you not remember your own sister?!"
Charon grunted. "I can't remember!" He highly emphasized. "They made me forget everything. Everything. Except my name. But they couldn't make me forget you."
Juliet whimpered. "Why couldn't you forget me?"
Charon looked uncomfortable as all hell. "Because I-" He started, but stopped when there was loud barking from behind. Juliet turned her head to see Dogmeat running up, followed by all the other dogs of Little Lamplight, all curious about the new outsider mutt, and finally, Sylvia came into view.
"I'm back!" She waved, her blonde hair falling in her face as she was taking deep panting breaths. "I only ran almost the whole way back because the dumb dog decided he wanted to race." She put her hands on her sides as she tried to get herself together. "Did I miss anything?"
"Yeah, yeah," Juliet let slip a grin. "I found some holotapes you may want to hear."
Charon took one look at the tiny human girl with honey blonde hair wearing a pink dress and a headband revealing a horrid smirk, and he knew he was not about to deal with the shit that was about to come out of her mouth.
"I'm Princess," she introduced. "I'm the real one in charge around here, so when I say to do something, you do it. Got it? Now who are you guys?"
Juliet puffed her cheeks and Sylvia had a feeling she was about to try to be funny again like she did with Mayor MacCready earlier, so she quickly intervened. "Yeah, okay, whatever you say."
"Good!" The girl gleamed. "Now that that's settled, stay out of my way and there won't be any trouble."
"You're kind of in our way," Sylvia admitted. "The mayor gave us permission to enter Murder Pass."
"You're crazy!" Princess spat. "Since he's not here to help me open the gate, I need one of you Mungos to do it."
"Sure," Sylvia climbed up the side stairs to help Princess lower the giant bags of rocks that held the gate shut, thus getting it open.
"See you Mungos never." Princess smirked as Dogmeat, the red ghoul, the Lone Wanderer, and the human Pip-Boy all walked through the open gate.
Sylvia gave Juliet a stern glare to prevent her from sarcastically replying to the kid, leading the way down to a little wooden door that no doubt opened to Murder Pass.
Charon grumbled lightly as he held his shotgun across his chest. Nearly every child in Little Lamplight said there were monsters to be expected. Which meant it's time to protect these humans he wouldn't admit he cared about.
Oh, and the dumb dog too. Why not.
Murder Pass consisted of several super mutants. They weren't too difficult for Charon to handle while being able to keep an eye on-
A super mutant with a super sledge leaped forward, swinging his weapon right at Sylvia. Charon grunted and couldn't turn his shotgun fast enough to shoot him. In that split second he knew he had failed. His contract broken. His employer killed.
During that same split second, bursts of laser rifle flew past Charon on his right. They landed perfectly against the super mutant's right arm, causing him to drop his weapon, just as Sylvia landed on the ground after ducking for her life. If not for what happened... that super sledge would have hurt.
Charon pumped an entire clip into that bastard mutant, and Dogmeat pounced him in the end. Sylvia scrambled up and let out, "Thanks, Juliet!"
"Yeah, yeah!" The teenager replied, trying not to drop her laser rifle from shaking so much. Charon was impressed; Juliet was catching on to her new... new what, exactly? Powers? Abilities? She could do the same thing as the machine on Sylvia's arm. Doesn't that mean Juliet was just using her new... functions?
He hated himself for ever thinking of her as some kind of machine.
Fortunately, Murder Pass lived up to it's name in regards to distance. They soon came upon a vault door that read NO ACCESS. The gang went through it, and something caught Juliet's eye in the left corner, on a shelf. It looked like a Nuka-Cola bottle, but... it was glowing purple?
"It's Nuka-Cola Quantum," Sylvia chirped as Juliet inspected the bottle.
"This is the Quantum?" Juliet realized. "They were going to start selling it, but you know, the world got blown up." She set the bottle back. Sylvia proceeded through the next vault like door and Charon was about to follow her when Dogmeat stepped on something behind one of the metal poles holding the room up. He whined, causing Sylvia to turn around and widen her grey-blue eyes.
"That's a-!"
Charon kicked Dogmeat hard enough to knock him back just a couple of feet, which was barely enough to avoid the result of stepping on the pressure plate. The explosion was mild, knocking Charon towards the door Sylvia went out of. The ghoul dropped, and Juliet dropped down to him. "Charon?!" She screamed.
"I'm fine," he grumbled, forcing himself up. As soon as he stood straight, he nearly keeled over. Juliet grabbed his right side, which appeared to be what was hurting him, and helped him stay up. "I said I'm fine!" He growled.
Dogmeat pranced toward them like nothing happened. "You're not fine!" Sylvia remarked. "You don't look like you can walk on your own. I'll give you a stimpak and Juliet can help you until you're able to walk by yourself again."
Dogmeat barked. Charon huffed, unable to argue with his employer. "As you wish."
Sylvia stuck him with a stimpak and Juliet readjusted herself so his weight wouldn't crush her. "Let's look for this G.E.C.K. and get the hell out of here." Sylvia urged.
The beginning of Vault 87 was littered with blood stains, radroaches, and skeletons. Skeletons everywhere. Super Mutants were to be expected, of course. Luckily, the stimpak had done its job and Charon was fitted to get back to blasting with his shotgun.
Juliet gulped and wasn't sure how to feel. He didn't speak to her at all, nor thanked her for sharing his weight while he was limping. She mentally sighed and shrugged it off.
This vault was considered pretty dull until they made it to the labs. A four legged pink creature with testicles coming out the mouth attacked them, terrifying Juliet. "What the hell was that?!" She screeched.
"Centaur," Sylvia answered. "They're like guard dogs for super mutants."
Juliet did her best to avoid stepping over it as they walked around the dead centaur. It didn't look like a half man, half horse, that's for sure.
Hello?
Everyone stopped, looking at each other in high alert.
Can you hear me?
Sylvia raised an eye. "Does anyone... hear that?"
"Yes." Charon answered.
Come down to the end of the hall by the test chambers. I'm in the room with the intercom. Please come.
The being speaking was... a super mutant. He wasn't dressed like one, though. He wore no armor, only a mostly ripped apart blue shirt and blue pants. Sylvia pressed the button on the intercom and said, "Hello?"
"It can't be!" The super mutant freaked. "Either you guys are real, or I've gone mad. Are you actually humans? And ghouls?"
"A friendly super mutant," Sylvia spat. "Now I've seen everything."
"Do you have to use that term?" The super mutant groaned. "Yes, I was born in the F.E.V. chambers, but I am not a super mutant. I am more like a meta human! My name is Fawkes."
F.E.V. The same logs as before flew through Juliet's mind, but the same recurring one would not leave her alone. "Only a concentrated form of Forced Evolutionary Virus." She muttered.
"Do you know anything about a G.E.C.K?" Sylvia asked Fawkes.
"Yes," he replied eagerly. "If you can get me out of this room I can take you to where it is and acquire it for you. It is located in an area that is severely heavy with radiation. No human can survive."
Sylvia dared to look at Charon, when Juliet snapped. "Hell no!"
"I was just-" Sylvia grit her teeth. "Fine! Okay, Fawkes. We'll figure out how to get you out of there."