Chapter 15 – Discoveries about Self, and News of the Outside

Before moving away from the computer, I did a quick data search to investigate a couple of the points about Leris's journal

The first thing was that I was curious try and work out if there had been any interaction with the Vault Main-frame, after 15th June 2112. To my surprise there was very little sign of anything that I could link directly to Leris; there was a number of failed attempts to access the system, probably from newly arrived residents, but these attempts were rarely repeated by the same person. The only significant exception was a bunch of attempts that were all done by the same individual (log-on name: "Ler?%sty" over a number of years. Had Leris's dream hit a problem? For now, I could only hope so.

Other item was that Leris had mentioned a Maintenance Engineer called Jeff Saunders, as well as other Residents having kids. Despite Leris have removed his research data, there were still enough surviving Vault records, to confirm that I, or rather my character was a direct descendant of the original Vault Residents.

As I leant back to consider that point….

Suddenly I was … somewhere else in the Vault …. There was a huge man in a blue Vault-suit, towering over me smiling… he gave me this enormous baseball bat mentioning something about my birthday, then dragging me over to far corner of the room to "Try it out", there lying on the floor bleeding, was this stranger in peculiar clothes…. the man starting yelling at me to "Hit it! Kill it!"… the air went strangely misty, and I felt roaring rage surge through me, a red mist descended… I raised the bat, and …

The next thing, I was lying in a pool of sweat on the floor of the Overseer's office, having fallen from my seat.

"A bloody Flash-back", I gasped out loud. My initial thought, was that it had been a one-off traumatic memory, but as I tried to analyse it in my mind, there didn't seem to be any horror, or shock attached to the event, if anything all the mental attachments to indicated that it was classed as….well…. a …happy?... memory; the only horror I could find, was from my old male personality, but this new me treasured it

What was worse though, was that I near certain, there hadn't been any such memories lurking in the back of my brain, but this newly recalled flashback memory seemed to have all sorts of links to other feelings and possible other similar memories.

Then it hit me, in the Fallout 3 game, at Lone Wanderer's 10th birthday, there had been a trip down to the reactor room to learn how to shoot radroaches; I had just suffered a flashback of Vault 106's version of the event – learning to kill outsiders.

It now seems that my mind was starting to alter, to match the physical change that resulted from my arrival here.

I dragged myself to my feet, and lurched into the Overseer's bathroom and prompted emptied the contents into the toilet bowl, finally I staggered to the sink, to wash my mouth out, and to splash cold water on my face, to try and clear my mind, but into the mirror over the sink, the white face that peered back at me, which had started to appear familiar, now only looked like a terrified stranger's.

I gave a desperate mental prayer to whatever deity who would be willing to listen, that somehow the part of my mind, that made me Me! would survive.

After some time, and a number of repeated submersions of face into the overflowing sink, my brain finally seemed to fully come back online enough for me to resume my investigations.

A brief examination of the Leris's living quarters revealed little, with few if any true personal items about, he seemed to have only used the room for sleeping in and that's was it.

The last remaining room to investigate was the one off to the left of the Overseer's Office, stepping into the room it was Vault's communication centre. The first thing that struck me was that almost half of the original equipment, and been stripped out and piled in a corner …. Correction, make that thrown in a heap in the corner. In their place, and been equipment that was cleared not marked as being standard Vault-Tec issue, but of a much higher quality, a quick glance around the room, plus some of Leris's comments in his journal, provided the answer. Hard though it may seem, this mass-murderer had a hobby, he had been a radio-ham enthusiast.

The bonus for me, however was that I had a much equipment for hearing from, and contacting the outside world, than the designers of this vault had intended.

A quick check over and everything looked Okay, so I reached out for the 'On' button, and …. Missed - Odd!. I tried again, and again missed, "What the Hell!", I exclaimed out loud. This time I slowly reached my arm out for the button, and as my finger approached the button, my hand began to shake, and I was hit with an overwhelming urge NOT to switch the radio on.

I re-checked & double-checked everything: the equipment was in very good condition considering its age, there was no booby traps, nothing to prevent me from switching it on; all except for this overwhelming fear that I mustn't. Then it occurred to me what it was: the other possible effect of Leris's damned psycho-gas – Fear. I hadn't noticed it before, because I was normally dealing with the Red Madness, but now these new memories had started to appear, I was getting the full Vault Resident mind-set, which obviously included a Fear…a phobia? …. of anything from outside the Vault!...

I not sure exactly what, maybe I could discuss with Sarah-Jane, since she had more medical knowledge than me. But this Fear certainly explained why no-one tried to leave, even those who knew what life was really like out there.

I stared that red power button, as it glowed back me, as if it was daring me to press it. My original male mind fought with the Fear, trying to overcome, when suddenly it got help from an unexpected quarter. The Red Madness, which had been lurking at the back of my mind joined the fray and combined, I was able to throw my fist at that taunting button, hitting it squarely dead centre.

By time the pain in my hand had subsided down a manageable level, the Communication Centre had powered up, done automatic scan of the airwaves for all available stations, and had lit points on the frequency dial, where it had found a radio signal.

The lights mostly lined up with some faded hand-written labels that Leris must have affixed to it, nearly 200 years ago.

As I reached for the dial, I noticed that all physical resistance to my actions, had ended, however in inside my head, I could feel that my mind was divided, with one half desperately wanting for me 'to leap from my seat, and flee from the room, never to return', while the other half equally desperate for 'any kind of news of the outside world', and between the two lurked the "Red Madness" eager for mental mindless violence to commence. I could feel my sanity teetering on the edge of the precipice, and all I could do is carry on, and hope for the best.

The first station available was one that didn't have a label, and annoyingly while the carrier wave was strong, the transmission quality was poor. The few word fragments that I could decipher sounded like "…NCR..", "..Legion…" and "… the Dam…."

Now the rumours that I had heard of the upcoming "Fallout New Vegas", before I had ended up here, had said that it was set a few years from now, however the events that led up to that game, included the First Battle for Hoover Dam which should be occurring about now; certainly those faint fragments sounded about right. But as regards the Capital Wasteland, Nevada might as well be on the dark side of the moon.

The next station was playing martial music, which was then followed by the familiar voice of President Eden nostalgically recounting a Yao Guai hunting trip in his younger days, where unable to find an adult, he had been offered a cub to shoot instead. That tale sounded suspiciously similar to the one about Teddy Roosevelt, and how toy bears got to be called Teddy Bears.

Leris's label for the Enclave's station said "US Government – Emergency Broadcast", which explains why a lot of the radios littering the wasteland are tuned to it; owners vainly listening for life-saving advice.

The next set of stations & labels belonged to the local radio network, that Leris had established with the neighbouring Vaults. Unsurprisingly only Vaults 101 & 112 were still broadcasting anything: 112 was sending a strong carrier-wave, but nothing else, while 101 was faintly broadcasting its internal Vault PA system, it sounded like someone had left his microphone on, rather than an intentional broadcast. From what I could make out it sounded like Amata's revolt was still in its infancy, as the Overseer was still ordering everyone to remain in their rooms due to the radroaches, and that the continuing disobedience will be dealt with harshly, in due time

The next station, was the one I had been looking forward to: GNR. The crazy mad voice of Three Dog rolled out of the radio, and bounced around the walls despite the distortion and weakness in his radio signal.

It took only a few minutes of listening to him, compared to President Eden's broadcast, for me to decide who I would have most confidence in trusting. It was like that crazy uncle (or aunt) that most families seem to have, who is both maddening & funny at the same time, but you know deep down, that they do care about you, compared that dodgy second-hand car salesman, or politician who promise the moon, but they have to deliver, refer you to the small print, or claim 'Act of God' as to why they can't.

It was interesting to see how well constructed GNR broadcast was, it was not as random as it seemed in the game. Three Dog broadcasted a news report roughly on the hour, repeating any old, but current news, with any updates there may have been, followed by a kind of weather forecast. The forecast that I caught warned that heavy black clouds had been seen, to the North-west, so people were warned to be careful when near, or in the Potomac river-bed, as there was a possibility of flash floods.

In between the news broadcasts, was a mixture of music, an episode of "Adventures of Herbert 'Daring' Dashwood" – it was the one were Dashwood & Argyll meet for the first time, and Three Dog's personal Survival tips.

I listened for quite some time, long enough to catch two of Three Dog's news reports, taking care note of the key news items, which were:

Reports of two crazies in weird costumes fighting it out daily in Canterbury Commons

That traders reported no sign of life at Greyditch

Warning that while Raider activity had fallen in some areas (Maybe the recent Pied Piper message was a factor, I mused), it wasn't true everywhere, and that Fairfax had fallen to the Raiders, although there were vague reports that the Outcasts still held their end of the town.

An alert: there are sightings of increased numbers of Super Mutants, in the area of The Mall, especially near the Capitol Building.

Three Dog passed some rye remarks, that not only had someone had left Vault 101, the first in almost twenty years, but that another had come out shortly after.

News Flash: The bomb in the centre of Megaton had finally been defused, by the most recent escapee from Vault 101, who now had an open invite to visit GNR, to "Fix Three Dog's Toaster"

Strangely the getting of a clearer picture of conditions seemed to resolve or at least deaden my mental/emotional internal conflict, leaving a desire to see what things were really like for myself. But of course before I could do that I needed a complete picture of conditions within the Vault, and to clear up, or at least identify any lose ends.