Kole Bailey
July 2nd, 2012
Fallout: The Continued Adventures
PART 1
"The man who made the first fist was a brute, the man who made a gun: a mass murderer. The man who split the atom… is not a man any longer."
Chapter 1: 101
"It is the year 2151. A war hundreds of years ago plunged the world into nuclear chaos, killing everything and sparing no one. We survived only because of vaults: underground bomb shelters used to protect people from the blast above. They worked and we have sustained ourselves ever since. Sure, our numbers have decreased, but we're still alive down here, right?"
"I don't know about you, Mr. Douglas, but I'd like more room, Jace smells awful." I looked at Chip with hate as he made his insult.
"Hahaha, you're the funniest." I muttered.
"Now, now Chip. Let's take care not to make fun of other students, shall we?"
"Sure thing Mr. Douglas."
"Continuing with my lesson, from what our records show, the country of China nuked The United States of America around 2070 in the most popular cities. This includes a city called New York and Washington D.C. which is the area surrounding our vault. Since a bomb hit here, the Overseers across our time here deemed it unsafe to reopen the vault due to the possibility of a contamination in the air."
"Bullshit." Someone said.
"He says it's for your own good guys." A girl's voice informed.
"Aww, that's nice, daddy's girl." Chip said grinning.
"Shut up, Chip." The bell rang and we all clamored our books together to get up.
"Wait a moment Rachel. You too Jace." Mr. Douglas called us over to his desk.
"Don't take Chip seriously you guys, you now he's having a hard time with his family issues. He doesn't get the attention that he needs from his parents anymore."
"Yeah, we're all aware of his mommy problems" Rachel said sarcastically.
"I'm glad it's not bothering you, and it shouldn't. Have a nice day now, you two." Rachel and I walked out of the classroom to get lunch.
"Do you believe Chip? It's hard enough being who I am without him adding insults on top of it."
"Everyone knows Chip is a little girl under all those half-baked insults. I'm pretty sure he knows it too." I told her. Rachel and I walked to lunch with the other six students and sat down at a lunch table. I looked down at my tray. The rations we had were what we've always eaten: insta-mash and steak. I sighed as I ate the bland food.
"What's wrong, Jace? Chip didn't get to you, did he?"
"Chip's not getting to anyone, especially the girls around here." Rachel laughed at that.
"It's just... don't you think there's something else we could do here? With the vault, I mean. Maybe we could get more food somehow... I don't know."
"I totally understand, I asked my dad the same thing, 'but this is life here. We might be the only people left living in the world, and we're trying to make the best of it'." She quoted her father.
"Yeah, I feel like a real savior of humanity." I sighed as I forked the rubbery meat.
"You know there are times I think that nothing even happened out there, that the bombs didn't even hit, and everyone can't free us from out there. I just want to know, dude." Rachel told me.
"I wish we could, maybe your father could let us leave the vault, explore."
"You know my father; he's stubborn and fixated on the 'saving of our vault'. I just wish he'd let us decide." The bell rang and Rachel and I walked out for our next class.
"No its fine, fascism always works." I said sarcastically.
"Welcome back, kids." Mr. Douglas smiled as we walked inside and sat back down in our seats.
"I hope this time our fellow students won't interrupt my lesson today." Mr. Douglas glared at Chip.
"How dare they, Mr. Douglas?" Chip pounded his fist on his desk in faux fury.
"This is important, people. When a student reaches the age of 16, he or she must take the G.O.A.T. or the Generalized Occupation and Aptitude Test to show what their priorities are in the vault when they get older. If you guys don't take this seriously, you might end up in the reactor level, working with the pipes when you were made to be a doctor."
"Or get stuck with your job." Chip said quietly.
"So it is my job to present these questions for you, so you can live happy and productive lives. Everyone has a job to do and we're going to find out what it is."
Mr. Douglas handed out paper to us, and everyone got started on it. The first question: who is the supreme leader of this vault, the person who we have everything to thank for, including our lives? I rolled my eyes and wrote "The Overseer". I heard Chip sigh when he read it. The next question was when I started to get confused. I read it and it asked: You want to play a prank on your father, who is out of the room, so you sneak into his private bathroom and... a blank followed afterwards. I read the question over and over. Why am I being asked this? Mr. Douglas looked at me and nodded his head. I looked at my classmates, who also were startled by this question. I poked Rachel's black hair with my pencil and asked her if she understood it. She didn't. I started to think about the question being asked. What would I do? After some thought, I wrote my answer. I read the next question. It was similar to the last. It read: You found a lost boy in the lower levels of the vault. He is afraid, but also appears to be in possession of stolen property. What do you do? More questions formed instead of answers. What does this have to do with job placement? How often do children commit grand thievery and get lost in the process? I scratched my head and thought about my answer. He's just a kid, but he also stole from someone. What should I do with him? I made a decision. I'll take him out of the lower levels, but confiscate the stolen property. After I wrote it down, I felt bad for what I did. The feeling ambushed me; I've never felt this way before, then again, I've never thought about these things.I couldn't think this way, it was impossible for me. I got stuck on the next problem, and a few seconds after I wanted to rip my paper in half, Rachel got up.
She got up to hand her paper into Mr. Douglas. When she reached his desk, my classmates looked at her as if she said something to them. She gave her paper to Mr. Douglas and he smiled. She then sat back down. Frank, a classmate of ours asked how she was already done. She told him it was easy after a while. He told her he was still on the third one. She shrugged. I sat in my desk for what seemed like an eternity until the bell rang. Rachel and I were going to do what we always did at the end of the day, go to the doctor's office to see my dad and grab a bite to eat afterwards. On the way there, I asked Rachel about the practice test.
"How did you finish that fast? I had to give fake answers just to finish in time."
"I don't know it seemed natural after a while. You just had to think." She told me.
"Thanks for the compliment. That test is going to be impossible for me tomorrow. Hey, are you going to the self-defense class today?" I asked.
"Not today. Why, are you?"
"As much as I would like to kick Chip's teeth in, it's not going to be fun not having someone laugh with me about it afterwards." We laughed and continued down the hallway to my dad's office.
Rachel and I walked into dad's office. He was giving medicine to Stew, who has been sick with a cold from working in the reactor levels. I approached him my father.
"Hi Jace. Hello Rachel."
"How goes it dad?"
"Things could be better, Jace. The medicine we have here is becoming ineffective to people. I need something stronger."
"Anything we could do to help?"
"There's nothing you can do. This medicine is 200 years old; no one can make it better."
"Sorry to hear that Jim." Said a voice from behind me. We turned around to see The Overseer standing in the doorway, listening in on the conversation.
"I know things here aren't the best, but we're trying to make do. I've been trying to come up with a plan to help the vault, we'll see if it's ready soon." The Overseer walked out of the office and all three of us stared at each other.
"What was that about?" Rachel asked.
"I'm not sure." I said with a puzzled look on his face.
"Be safe you kids, it sounds like there's change brewing in this vault." My dad said, returning to his desk. Rachel and I walked out of the office and towards the diner so we could eat.
"What do you think he meant, with his 'plan'?"
"I don't know, but I'm getting worried about my father. He's changed so much when he became Overseer. He barely talks anymore, and he's aged so much." Rachel looked worried after saying this.
"Don't worry, your dad's smart. He'll straighten up when things start to calm down and this 'plan' comes into action."
"I hope so."
We were almost to the diner when we met Chip in the hallway. He turned towards Rachel and walked towards her.
"Hey Rachel." Chip smiled, trying to act friendly.
"What do you want, Chip?" Rachel seemed more annoyed by him than usual.
"I just wanted to say sorry, for the jokes I mean, you know it's a joke, right?"
"Oh please, get away from me Chip."
"We're just trying to get some food, Chip." I interrupted.
"Stay out of this, kid, unless you want me to beat the hunger out of you."
"Wow, cool. So apparently you're not here to apologize, huh?" I asked myself out loud.
"Can't you see we have somewhere to be?" Rachel told Chip.
"Fine, I don't need an ugly chick like you anyway." Chip said, trying to encourage himself.
I looked at him angrily, and then at Rachel. Her face said 'don't do it', but I couldn't let what happened happen. I turned Chip around. "Apologize for what you just said." I ordered.
"Why? Her dad's a failure, and she's no less! Her family screwed everyone in here!" Chip shouted.
"Hey, what's going on? Break it up!" Security intervened. They broke up the argument and sent us on or separate ways. I turned towards Rachel, who looked saddened.
"Come on, let's get something to eat." I said, trying to encourage Rachel. We walked into the diner. Rachel and I like eating here because Chip doesn't. We ordered our food and apple desert, which was a nice treat for us. We sat down at a table and asked for our food. We gave Lauren, the girl who works there our ration coupons to eat, and she went to get our meals. In a few minutes she arrived with it.
"So have you seen your dad do anything out of the ordinary?"
"Most of the things he does now is out of the ordinary, I wouldn't notice it if he did." Rachel looked down at her steak.
"Alright, well we shouldn't worry about it now."
"Yeah, we should worry about the GOAT." Rachel and I finished our steaks and Lauren came by with our desert. As a way to cheer Rachel up, I gave her my desert.
After our food, we both got up and headed for home. The lights were dimmed, which meant it was time to sleep. Rachel and I were about to go our separate ways to our homes when we heard a noise. We turned to see Chip, stumbling over himself, with a bottle and ration coupons in his hand. We tried to ignore him, but he had other plans. He waddled over to us with a gazed look on his face.
"Hey... Reh-Rachel." Chip mumbled.
"I can already tell this is going to end badly. I announced quickly.
"What do you want Chip? We're busy."
"Busy? With this guy?" Chip turned to me. His breath smelled foul, every word was like a blast of rotten food.
"Wh-why do you always...hang out with this guy? What's… wrong with me?" Chip hiccupped.
"He's my friend. You know-something that you're not?"
"Chip why don't you just go back home, call it a night?" I intervened again.
"No, and if you... keep talking to me I'm going to send you home to your pappy with a project for him to work on." Chip was getting irate, although it was hard to tell with his slurry words.
"I… I guess that was a threat. A 'project'? Like, what is that?" I smiled and shook my head.
"Alright." I sighed as I put my hand on his shoulder and smiled. "Chip just calm down an-" Chip punched the side of my head and I stumbled backwards and hit my head on a wall and fell over, dazed.
"Chip!" Rachel screamed.
"That's cool, not like I didn't call it at the beginning of this comversation or anything." I mumbled as I felt my jaw.
"Just come out with me, you know you like me." Chip grabbed Rachel's shoulders, squeezing her harder with every word. I had to stop this; I struggled to get up from the blow to my head.
"Chip get off of me!" Rachel grabbed Chip and threw him against the wall. He looked at her in surprise that someone so small could be capable of doing that. He recovered and raised his bottle towards her and swung. I grabbed Chip's arm before he could strike and he dropped the bottle. As it shattered to pieces, I shoved Chip to the ground and punched him as hard as I could, letting out all the rage that has been kept inside me for so long. I continued punching him, blood flying onto my fists.
"If you ever touch her again, I'll kill you! Do you hear me? I'll… I'll kill you!" I roared at him. I got off of him and turned to Rachel. She sat there, terrified. She backed away from me. I reached my hand out to her, and she ran away. My stomach hurt, and my head spun, the same feeling I got when I took the G.O.A.T. I don't know what I just did, but I felt sorry for it. I looked down at Chip, who was knocked out and grabbing his bloody face. I picked him up and carried him to my dad's office. I put him on a stretcher, and my dad look at me and jumped up from his seat.
"Jace, what happened? What did you do?" My father ran to Chip and began examining him.
"He was going to hurt Rachel, and I couldn't let him. I just... I don't know."
"His nose is broken and he's cut up bad. What exactly did he do?"
"He was going to break a bottle over her."
"You mean he was drinking?" My dad didn't seem too surprised.
I looked at him in response to his obvious question.
"You said Rachel was with you, where is she?" Dad cleaned up the blood from Chip's face.
"She ran away. I-I've never seen her like that before."
"It's all right son, Chip will be fine, and Rachel will forgive you. Just give it time." My dad bandaged his nose and cuts and I washed my hands.
"No, no she won't. I honestly don't even know what happened. She's never seen me like that before, and I don't want her to see me like that ever again." I sat down in a chair and looked at my hands. My knuckles were red and bruised.
"Listen to me son, time is what we have a lot of here, and that's more than we can say about what's outside. Your mother wanted you to live a happy life here, and you can do that now."
Chip groaned. I didn't want him to see me when he woke up, so I left. I went home and sat in my bed. I sat there, wondering what my life is even about, why I was even here, living this life. It took me hours to fall asleep.
I woke up to an announcement on the intercoms.
"All citizens are to report to the Atrium immediately." I got up and put my blue jumpsuit on and walked out of my door. When I got to the Atrium, a crowd had already formed, and the Overseer was in the middle of it. I walked into the middle of the crown and saw Chip with his bandages on, when he saw that I was looking at him, he turned away.
"Citizens of Vault 101, I speak to you in a time of great need. As you know, our vault has sustained our lives here for generations, and it seems we have a catastrophic problem. Our supply of food and water is dwindling, and we are on the verge of starvation. We have enough food to last us about two years."
The crowd started to chatter, people started shouting and yelling, but was quickly calmed down by our security.
"But I have come up with a plan. A plan that could save us from death." I still didn't understand, but Rachel did. Her eyes flicked from side to side as she put together a complicated puzzle. "I would like to say that I have failed you as a leader. Slowly as the generations of people passed, we have learned to be too comfortable, too dependent. We have lost the ability to think for ourselves. No longer can the general public think uniquely, and it is not your fault, it's mine. And now, there is only one way this can be fixed." He sighed after this. Rachel looked at the ground and blinked. Her heart dropped as she looked up and made eye contact with her father.
"I have chosen through our student body who exactly has the greatest capability to explore the unknown, to save this vault from extinction, to use their mind to look after themselves, and only themselves. Who, from the 'practice' G.O.A.T. testing, can make rational decisions that can keep themselves alive in the world outside." The crowd talked amongst themselves, but were once again calmed down.
"That person is…"
I looked over to Rachel as her face became pale. She shook her head and looked up at her father, who looked at her. His eyes saddened and he turned his head to the other side of the room.
"Jace Marston." The crowd moved away from me and now I was the center of it. I looked up at him, and then at my peers. Rachel's mouth dropped, and she looked at me. My stomach hurt.