Chapter 1: The Birth of a Dream
WARNING: Contains heavy amounts of 50's lingo.
A young man of twenty-three years strode along the sidewalk, his dark gray pinstripe suit starkly contrasting with the bright, sunny day. In his right hand, he clutched a calendar, its cover reading, "2077 Calendar: The Hottest Babies with the Classiest Chassis'!" He held up the calendar in front of him and looked at the woman on the cover. She was very attractive, with red hair & clad in a scant white bikini. "'Bout time I got a calendar for this year…" he mumbled to himself.
The young man walked up to his house, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. After closing the door, he immediately tore the plastic off the calendar and flipped through it. Each month had a different woman, all of them young, attractive, and bikini-clad, just like the woman on the cover. "There we go, October…" he said as he laid the calendar on a nearby table. He grabbed a pencil and circled the 23rd. Not wanting to nail the calendar to the wall, he simply left it on the table and walked up to a TV set to turn it on.
He pushed the power button, and the screen flickered. On it was a cartoon boy dressed in a blue jumpsuit, grinning from ear to ear and waving at the people watching the television. The words "Vault-Tec Industries, building a better future by ensuring a safe tomorrow!" flashed across the screen. The man's mouth cracked into a slight grin as he saw the boy. "Vault Boy… First, he's an idea in my imagination and next, he's the mascot of a major corporation!" he said quietly.
Suddenly, the young man felt the urge to draw his creation. He turned off the TV and put a record on his phonograph. After lowering the needle, he watched the record as it began to spin. "Give me, a kiss to build a dream on, an' my imaaaagination, will thrive upon that kiss… Ooo, sweetheart, I ask no more than this… a kiss to build a dream on, ooo…" As he listened, time seemed to stand still, like the song would never end, like it would keep playing until the end of time. He snapped out of the trance, sat down, and began to draw.
This wasn't like all the other times the young man drew his brainchild. He wasn't drawing the boy for Vault-Tec to use in one way or another. This time, he drew with passion and care, paying painstaking attention to each little line & curve. In his mind echoed the saying, "A true artist can breathe life into his works."
The artist heard a knock at the door. Upon opening it, he saw another young man, also of twenty-three years, dressed in a navy blue pinstripe suit & sporting a duck's ass.
"What's buzzin', cuzzin? How's about you n' me tonight go pick up some chicks in skins or some paper shakers, make the scene over at a passion pit n' catch a flick with the other mushroom people n' subterraneans, an' play a little backseat bingo with the dollies? The pit about five blocks away, I tell ya, that place is antsville! We'll kill the babies, razz their berries, it'll be like crazy! You take your flip-top, I'll take my new screamer. It'll be no sweat, absolutely made in the shade! Waddaya say?" the man asked.
"Thanks, but I'm gonna need to pile up some Z's tonight." replied the artist.
"Wassa matter, afraid of a fake out, o' gettin' clutched?"
"Nah, I'd be a fream, the only one without a jelly roll for a nest. …Actually, all the front burners happening lately are getting me worried. We've had to annex Canada, China invaded Alaska last year, the European Commonwealth has dissolved… Part of me thinks I should have gone into a vault."
The friend smirked. "Ya don't really think the Reds'r gonna drop the big ones on us, do ya? It's all a conspiracy! They're lightin' up the tilt sign! Those vaults weren't built to 'save humanity', that's for damn sure! *Sigh* Well, I'm gonna agitate the gravel. With or without'cha, I'm gonna see to it that the shitload o' bread I spent on my new Corvega was worth it. See ya later, alligator. Oh, an' try not to be such a square, 'kay?"
"After a while, crocodile." the artist called out to his friend as he walked to his car. As he watched his friend drive off, he muttered under his breath, "Two-hundred-thousand dollars for a car? For cryin' out loud, the world's not made of money…"
He closed the door, sat back down at his desk, and resumed drawing. As he finished the final line, the saying echoed through the halls of his mind again: "A true artist can breathe life into his works." He could hardly believe his eyes as he witnessed what happened next.
The drawing began to be pulled off the paper and into the real world. It grew, and became three-dimensional. And then, it spoke.
"Golly, it sure is dandy to be alive!"
The young artist fell backwards and crashed to the floor. "What in the hell!?" he screamed. "What are you!?"
"What a silly question!" the living drawing exclaimed cheerfully. "I'm the Vault Boy!"
"B-but… you're a drawing! How did you come to life!?"
"Your guess is as good as mine! But, it sure does feel dandy to be alive!"
"Yes, you… said that already—Hm? What's that noise? It's coming from outside…"
The creator stepped outside and saw an airplane flying high overhead. He saw a large object being dumped out of it, and by the time he realized what it was, all he could do was mutter three words: "Oh, God no…" The last thing he ever saw was a blinding flash of light.
Vault Boy was pitch black from head to toe with soot, his hair sticking out in all directions, his eyes wide, and his mouth in a perfect oval. It was just like in a cartoon. People would have found the sight humorous amid the unspeakable destruction, were anybody alive to see it.
"Oh goodness me, it seems we've gotten ourselves into a bit of a pickle, haven't we?"