Notemeal: (More nutritious than author's notes, more informative than ordinary oatmeal!)

1. A quick acknowledgment and thanks to those who stopped by to read and comment on Chapter 1. Much obliged.

2. This bugger is long. My apologies, but I felt it would really lose a lot of its impact if broken up into two smaller sections.

3. Have fun. Fun is mandatory.

4. (Note added 2/26/09: Some scene revisions made in light of input from a couple of readers. Thanks for your thoughts, guys.)

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Entry B, Subsection C-4: No One Ever Leaves

"Well, what did -you- think we were going to do with the coconuts, silly?"

They were on a small island somewhere in the south Pacific: one of those tiny, unnamed, uncharted islands unspoiled by human beings. Unspoiled, that is, until now. The manner of self-indulgence the two of them were exhibiting probably counted as spoiling, and if it didn't, it certainly should have, what with the obscenely large amounts of raw decadence on display here – decadence that took the form of a massive banquet laden with mysterious island delicacies, a cluster of fruity alcoholic beverages, not to mention the decidedly skimpy attire the two of them were wearing.

Especially Amata. That swimsuit was positively scandalous, the way it only just barely covered her-

"Meg."

"Hmm?"

"This place… is… it's… it's just amazing. I've… I've never seen anything like it." And indeed she hadn't. Indeed neither of them had. Living in the Vault their entire lives, with nothing but barren, gray, lifeless walls to pass for scenery… breathing canned, recycled air and eating tasteless, dehydrated and rehydrated food. It was a poor way to live, especially when matched against such unrivaled luxury as this.

This… this was the real world, a tropical paradise, a true heaven on Earth, a miracle in its most potent and tangible form. The Bible's book of Genesis spoke of a Garden of Eden, a lush, verdant land where all manner of life thrived in harmony with one another. Truly, this was it, and somehow, through some means beyond all human reckoning, these two young girls had found themselves in that paradise. It was a gift without equal, an incredible blessing – like a young woman hearing for the first time those three magnificent words every young woman longs to hear: "It's not gonorrhea."

"Did I not tell you?" Megan was wearing her customary smug "Didn't I tell you? Because I'm pretty sure I told you," look.

"Yes, you told me."

"Behold my wisdom – wisdom to rival the great kings of old. Wisdom enough to challenge even that of Solomon himself! Look what I have provided for us. A tropical paradise for our very own, teeming with fertile green, lush with exotic life. And let us not forget the naked native girls who stand ready to attend to our every need. These fresh-faced, nubile young women in the flower of their youth – see how they await our beck and call?"

"It's hard not to notice," Amata responded with a murmur and a slight roll of the eyes. "But while you were at it, couldn't you… I don't know, maybe have gotten us some handsome naked native -boys,- too?"

"No. Anyway, we need but ask and these young ladies shall assist us in carving up these succulent coconuts so that we may hand feed them to the flamingos." While the two young ladies were lounging comfortably in their twin hammocks, their cadre of native servants had harvested for them a small pile of fresh coconuts. Said pile stood ready a short distance away, the innocent brown spheres resting one atop another atop another awaiting their destiny – whether that destiny was to be used as ordnance in some manner of horrific inter-island war, or, more likely, to be savagely slaughtered and eviscerated… their tasty, tender flesh cannibalized for food in a foolish and ultimately doomed attempt to sate the voracious hunger of the savage, ravenous pink birds that inhabited the island.

"Flamingos are mean, Meg. They bite."

"So do the naked native girls," Megan replied with a grin and a wink. "With any luck."

Amata snorted. "Listen, do me a favor?"

"Anything, most radiant one. What dost thou desire?"

There was a sudden note of urgency in Amata's voice, and Megan's hammock shook, as if a sudden squall had picked up. But the sky was clear, and as far as she could tell, there was no wind. The discrepancy jarred her. The words the other girl spoke jarred her even more. "You need to wake up."

"I'm sorry?"

-----

"Wake up! You've gotta wake up! Now!"

A small part of Megan's soul collapsed like a flan in a cupboard as images of that tiny sliver of paradise disappeared into hazy memory – the warm, life-giving sunlight replaced by the sickly glow of fluorescent lamps. The salty tang of the island's air had been swapped for the same stale, recycled Vault air she'd been breathing all her life. And instead of the relaxing sound of ocean waves breaking against the shore, there was the harsh, keening wail of a klaxon, and-

A klaxon? Wait, that was new.

"A-amata?" W-what? Oh, hey… I… I was just having a dream about you. It had coconuts and everything, and-" Halfway through her sentence, Megan began to swing her legs out of bed, bare feet making contact with the cold tile of the floor. She'd been feeling a little under the weather, so she'd knocked off a little early from her daily work shift in the Vault's reactor room, then returned to the small, spartan quarters she shared with her father. She'd kicked off her shoes, promptly taken a nose dive into her bunk, and lost the next hour and a half (though it had only felt like five minutes) to that crazy dream. And now, Amata was standing over her, shaking her awake, her face pinched into a mask of fear, sorrow and a whole host of other emotions Megan couldn't identify.

Though she was pretty sure she recognized anger in there as well. A half second later as her best friend clenched her hand into a fist and drove it into her shoulder with excessive (Think "hunting molerats with hand grenades" levels of excessive) force, she realized that she had been quite correct about the anger thing.

"Ewwwww, gross! Goddamnit, Meg! This is -not- the time for joking around!" Amata's voice was strained – strained, and quite possibly, even on the verge of panic.

She's hitting me, why is she hitting me? This is starting to remind me a lot of Beatrice's kinky fetish films. The really creepy ones with the whips and the chains and the midgets.

"Yeah, I'm getting that!" Megan protested, rubbing her sore shoulder. "What's with the hitting?!"

Amata shook her head as if she could shake the stray thoughts from her mind with such a simple gesture. Unintuitive as the action was, it seemed to work, as the words leapt from her mouth in a rush. "Jonas… Jonas is dead, your Dad's gone, and my father's men are looking for you! I flooded the Security channels with some false reports saying you were spotted over in D-Block, but they'll get wise before too long. We've got to get you out of here!" Even before she'd finished those sentences, she was reaching over to the far wall to retrieve her friend's boots. Time was of the essence, and it would be exceptionally humiliating for the redhead to be apprehended because she took too long donning her footwear.

Unfortunately for them both, news of this sort is never taken well, even for those prepared to hear it; Megan most certainly was -not- prepared. She'd seen Jonas hale and hearty a mere two hours ago, just before she'd gone off-shift. He'd challenged her to a game of chess. He always won (She had the strategic sense of a brahmin farmer,) but it never mattered to her. She merely took pleasure in the simple joys of spending time with a cherished friend. And now he was dead and she had not the slightest notion why. There was an immense… disconnect in her mind that she just could not reconcile. Her tongue tripped over the words and her version blurred as her eyes suddenly found themselves misting over. "Jonas? D-dead? H-how?"

Amata had promised herself she wouldn't cry – she couldn't afford to, not when the situation was so dire, and not when she knew her friend would need her. To her credit, she held the tears back – but it was a close thing. True, she was nineteen years old; true, she was an adult – but one who'd lived her entire life sheltered inside an underground vault, hidden away from all the horrors of the real world, "protected" from the predations of others. She'd never witnessed a death by violence before, and certainly not the death of someone she'd known personally. "I… some of the security personnel. My father, he… he sent them to ask Jonas where your Dad went." She trailed off, and shivered, even though the Vault remained its normal, perfectly pleasant seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit.

She reached out a hand, finding her friend's and folding her fingers around it. Megan's hand was cold and unresponsive, almost lifeless as the other girl sat on her bunk, shocked by the sudden, horrific news she'd just received but unable to turn away as the details were relayed to her. She knew the full revelation would sicken her to her core; she knew how ghastly it would be, but something deep within her refused to retreat; it simply had to know.

Amata continued her litany, her voice sounding empty and hollow. "He wouldn't tell them, of course. So they yelled at him, threatened him… and when he still wouldn't talk," she swallowed back a sudden lump in her throat, "One of them punched him in the stomach. And then another hit him with a baton. In the back of the knee. They… they kept asking him questions, but he wouldn't answer, so they just kept hitting him. And after a while, they just stopped bothering with the questions. They didn't…" She sniffled, looking up at Megan who was only staring blankly at her, eyes wide and filled with tears she couldn't yet shed. "They didn't seem to care about the information, anymore, they just kept punching him and kicking and swinging their truncheons at his head. After a while, Jonas stopped moving, and… and…"

"That… that's enough, Amata." Megan's voice was a ragged whisper as she held up her free hand and begged the brunette to stop.

"God, I'm so sorry, Meg. They wouldn't stop. I couldn't stop them." She didn't know what else to say or to do, so she leaned over and pulled her friend into a hug, but Megan was so far gone she couldn't even hug back. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess. Nothing made sense.

One of her closest friends was dead. And her father? Gone? Disappeared? Impossible. He… he would never just leave without… it just couldn't be. Never mind that she'd been told all her life that no one could even leave the Vault, that all who were born there were destined to die there as well, but for her father to go without even telling her, without even -warning- her…

Her head was filled with questions. How? Why?

But she had no answers. No answers and no clue as to what to do next-

"Meg."

Amata's voice cut through her musings and she looked up. There was concern etched plain as day upon her best friend's face. But she couldn't look her in the eyes, her gaze instead dropping to her hands – hands which trembled as she stared blankly into her palms for several long, hard moments – moments that she likely did not really have. "Amata, I… I don't know what to -do.-"

"Meg, your Dad's gone. He left the Vault. My Dad's looking for him… and he's looking for you, too. It's not safe for you here. You… you have to leave the Vault, too."

"That's crazy-person talk, Amata. I mean… no one. Ever. Leaves. Isn't that what your father's been trying to tell us with all those propaganda speeches all these years?"

"Your father must've found a way, Meg," Amata insisted. "Nobody's been able to find him, so he must've found a way out. And… and I think I know how he did it. It's just… he didn't…" She frowned darkly, something about the entire situation finally standing out amidst all the other nonsensical aspects (of which there were many) that formed the whole. "He didn't tell you about any of this?"

Megan shook her head, dejected. "No."

"I… I'm sorry… maybe… maybe Jonas was supposed to fill you in, or maybe your Dad just didn't want to get you involved at all. Seeing how turned upside down the whole place is, I don't think I can blame him. He probably figured that if he kept you in the dark, he could get away clean. But fact is things didn't turn out that way, and whatever his reasons, we don't have time to figure them out now. You need to get ready to move."

"Ok," said Megan as she slipped on a pair of socks and then began to lace up her boots. She was still wearing her utility jumpsuit, so she didn't have much to do to get herself fully dressed. "You know, this whole giving orders thing suits you. Told you the G.O.A.T. was right about you."

"How can you make jokes at a time like this?"

She flashed the brunette a wan smile. "It's laugh or cry, Amata. Laugh or cry. And I really can't afford to cry right now." She took a deep breath as she stood up off her bunk and brushed a wrinkle out of her utilities. "What next?"

"Next? I give you this." Amata slowly and carefully reached into her pocket and pulled forth a hunk of metal that had been painted matte-black. Compact as it was, it still looked impossibly huge in her small hands.

"Jesus Christ, where did… where did you get a -gun?!-" Megan stared at the pistol in wide-eyed disbelief. It certainly wasn't the first N99 Pistol she'd ever seen – the handguns were standard issue for Vault Security personnel. She'd even fired one on several occasions during the "civil defense classes" offered by the Vault's "Deadly Weapons and You" program. But this was something different. This gun was being given to her and her alone. More than that, she was expected to kill with it.

"Lifted it and a couple of spare ammo clips from my Dad's dresser. He won't miss them. Take them. You… you might need them."

Megan tried to push the weapon away. It hadn't hit her yet. Despite the fact that the Overseer's men had killed, and that they were likely out to kill -her,- the idea of taking someone's life, even in defense of her own… it just didn't register. She was too much her father's daughter, too much a believer in "First do no harm," to easily accept a deadly weapon into her custody. Shooting radroaches with a BB gun was one thing. She had taken a shine to that as a wee lass. But this was something else entirely.

Amata understood. She was no killer; she was no murderer, and she knew as well that her friend was neither of these things. But Megan had not seen what the Overseer's lackeys had done to Jonas Palmer. She had. And deep down she knew that a similar fate awaited her closest friend should those men catch her unprepared and underequipped. There was no give in either her position or her voice. "You have to take it, Meg. You have to."

Contrary to every instinct she possessed, Megan's hand reached for the pistol. She didn't want it; somewhere in the back of her mind she understood what taking it would mean. Once she had it, she would feel compelled to use it. And once she used it, she would… she would be… different. And yet, there was no choice – her chances of getting out of the Vault alive without some kind of weapon were worse than slim. Her fingers closed around the pistol's grip, their grasp somewhat shaky as she tucked the gun into a pocket. The spare magazines went into another pocket. One could say what he or she liked about Vault-Tec standard issue jumpsuits, but they were, at the very least, utilitarian. Roomy pockets. "Thanks," she said, though she wasn't sure she really felt all that grateful. "I'll use it only as a last resort. I promise."

Amata nodded solemnly. "Ok. Listen, there's goons stationed in the Atrium, so you're going to have to take another route to get to the Vault door. I know a way. My father told me about it a long time ago. Even Security doesn't know about it. Just him and me. It's a secret escape tunnel that leads straight from his office to the exit…"

-----

From the living quarters, up past the cafeteria, shortcut through the classroom sections, then past the infirmary, and now up into the administration wing. The route she'd taken had been infested with radroaches. The entire Vault had been infested with radroaches as a matter of fact. Probably why her father had chosen now to make his move. How the little beggars had gotten in was anyone's guess, but their presence made for a good distraction. With all of the Vault's citizens under lockdown orders and the security personnel tied up fighting off the swarm, James had likely been relatively free to move about the Vault and make his escape. It had been a good plan, she mused. But not a perfect one. There had been things he hadn't expected. And people had paid the price for his mistakes.

She knelt down by Jonas' body. Deep down, she knew there was nothing more she could do for him, but part of her refused to just move on, to leave without so much as stopping to say goodbye. Jonas had pretty much always been a part of her life. He'd practically helped raise her. He'd been her father's assistant, too, but more than that, he'd been his friend… and hers, as well: kind eyes behind a pair of horn-rimmed eyeglasses, a warm smile for her during a long night watching dials and gauges in the reactor room. He'd helped Dad fix up that BB-gun she'd gotten for her tenth birthday, traded away a whole month's worth of dessert coupons to get her the super-rare issue of Drake Tungsten, Chrono-Cowboy she'd always wanted, and now he was gone, his presence erased as if it had never been, for reasons she might never understand.

It felt so… so -wrong,- a crime against the natural order of things. But it was a wrong that she was powerless to right, and that feeling, that knowledge that she was helpless to fix this injustice – that left her feeling both empty, but at the same time, angry. She wanted to find the people who had done this, make them pay, mete out some kind of punishment for their crimes. No one had appointed her judge, no authority had selected her as jury. Certainly, no one had empowered her as executioner, but it was a role she was suddenly all too happy to play, as insane and dangerous as such thinking was.

She shook her head, giving herself a badly needed moment to let her temper cool. Her father had taught her better. Justice was one thing, revenge was another entirely. But more importantly, she had no time to spare for either. Not when she was being hunted the way she was. Reaching down, she gently closed Jonas' eye – the other had swollen shut. It was a small gesture, but all she could spare for him with the dwindling time she had left to her.

Even as part of her paid her respects, however, there was another part of her busy attempting to assess what had happened. That part of her spoke in her father's voice, but it was not the voice that had sung her to sleep as a baby, or that had read her bedtime stories as a toddler. It was not the tender, loving voice of a father, but the voice James had used when he was lecturing her on something: it was the voice of a clinically detached doctor.

Severe contusions consistent with blunt force trauma. Multiple skull fractures. His eye socket has been fractured as well.

Amata was right, she thought to herself as the realization of what she'd been told earlier finally settled in. She'd had a hard time believing it, then, but here, now, confronted with the evidence right before her very eyes, there was no denying what had occurred.

They beat him to death, the bastards.

Her fists clenched at her sides as once again she felt that sense of rage, that desire to just lash out at the persons responsible for this atrocity, and once again she had to fight to quell that emotion – it would do her no good now. Instead, she stood and rushed over to Jonas' desk, pulling one of the lower drawers completely off its rails. The drawer itself was actually shorter than it should've been, but it'd been purposely modified to conceal a tiny hiding space just behind it. Jonas had used it to hide little bits of contraband, things like… well, like comic books or illegal homemade vodka, but she wagered it held far more meaningful cargo this time.

And she was right. There was an unlabeled holodisc tucked away in the secret compartment. She had to twist a little bit to get her arm in far enough to grab it, but once she had it, she popped it into her Pip Boy and copied the contents over, then stashed the disc in her pocket. She'd check out the contents later.

-----

The sound of hurried footsteps clambering down the hallway drew her attention and she ducked into a little niche in the corridor, trying to stay out of sight, and more importantly, trying not to panic. The hall was dim, lit only by blood-red emergency lighting, which helped her remain invisible to the men searching for her, but it only added to the fear clenching her stomach in a vice-grip. This wasn't the Vault she'd grown up in. It was so different from the place she knew, with its too-bright lights that hurt her eyes if she stared right into them, its dull, boring corridors, and its equally drab people who went about their business each and every day without the barest hint of excitement in their lives. Now she had more excitement than she could want, and the Vault that had seemed so familiar to her, that had been her home for her entire life was a Chamber of Horrors, with men out to get her.

She held her breath as the footsteps faded away then gingerly eased her way back out into the corridor proper, one hand braced against the wall as she carefully felt her way back out into the hallway. She stayed low to the ground, the handgun Amata had given her clutched in her hand. She hadn't yet had to use it, and part of her wished she wouldn't have to. Part of her still hoped beyond all hope that she could get through this without having to hurt anyone – well, more than a few bumps or bruises, at any rate. It was a naïve belief, and she knew it, but she'd lost so much so quickly, and she clung to any desperate hope, no matter how slim.

Voices reached her ears and she stopped short as she passed one of the security stations – the main one, in fact. Most of the Vault's security personnel were deployed, of course – searching for her, fighting off the radroaches, or enforcing the lockdown, so she'd expected their headquarters to be empty, but for whatever reason it wasn't.

The door to the room had been left open just a tiny crack, allowing her to hear at least two men inside. Their voices were gruff, but their agitation was clear. There was a third voice as well, this one a lot younger sounding and a lot higher pitched: clearly a woman's; it was laced with fear.

"I don't… I don't -know- where she is, all right? Why are you even -looking- for her, anyway?!"

Oh, God, no.

Megan crept forward slowly and put her eye to the crack in the door. Through it she could see exactly what was going on inside: Amata, her closest friend in all the world, was seated in a chair. Two men loomed over her. She recognized both – not hard, really, seeing as how the first was the Overseer.

If it had been anyone else, Megan might have been appalled, but her opinion of the "man who sheltered them all from the horrors of the world outside" had sunk so low over the years that she was no longer surprised that he could do something like this even to his own daughter. Encouraging one of his henchmen to "interrogate" her? Why, that was nothing unusual – just ordinary, run of the mill, everyday business. After all, she almost certainly possessed pertinent knowledge regarding the whereabouts of that exceedingly dangerous fugitive that was running loose in the Vault, and for the good of all the Vault's citizens, he simply had to have that information, regardless of cost. It was just good public policy. Like constant surveillance. Curtailing of basic human freedoms. Genocide. Mass sterilization efforts. Widespread genetic manipulation of an unwitting population. You know, the good stuff.

As for the other man, Megan knew him, too – there were few enough people living in the Vault that most people could at least manage to match everyone's face to a name. But not only that, she'd had enough run-ins with this particular thug in a uniform to last her entire life. Unfortunately.

Steven Mack was Wally's older brother. That alone should have been all anyone needed to say about his pedigree. He was a bully, plain and simple, and like many bullies who eventually live long enough, he'd decided to turn his childhood hobby into a marketable job skill. Apparently, life as a Vault 101 Security Officer agreed with Steve. He got to administer all the beatings he wanted, and it was all perfectly sanctioned by the Overseer and his administration. Nothing quite like getting official authorization to hassle people and even smack 'em a few times. Now he was threatening Amata. With a truncheon.

Well, that dog was just not gonna hunt, as the phrase went.

"C'mon, kid, you're not fooling anyone here. You're her best friend, everyone knows it. Witnesses saw you leaving A-Block, which is where McCulloch and her Dad are quartered, -and- we know it was your access code that was used to flood the SecTac channel with all those false reports on her location. We got you cold, little lady, so here's an idea: why don't you just tell us where she is…" Steven tapped the end of his baton against his open palm in a gesture he was fond of using on everyone from recalcitrant drunks to kids accused of swiping candy bars. "…and I don't have to make this ugly."

Crouched by that door, watching her friend being threatened, Megan was filled with an overwhelming urge to assail that pitiful excuse for a security guard with… sharp, pokey things. Many sharp, pokey things. To shove them into his eyes, his ears, underneath his fingernails… into far more vulnerable and… softer… areas. But the urge quickly passed, replaced instead with something else – an emotion she relished far less: fear. And not fear for herself, but fear for Amata.

Mack was leaning forward, using his height advantage to try and intimidate the brunette, and for the most part, it was working – a little too well. The girl was flinching back in her chair, but they'd made the mistake of leaving her hands free, and she was getting close to panicking. Though normally quite level-headed (She was far more even-keeled than Megan herself was, for example, as evidenced by that quick and shameful flirtation Megan had just had with the pokey objects concept,) Amata had never been in a situation like this before, and this was beyond anything she'd ever experienced. She was drastically out of her element and it showed. She was getting very close to doing something rash. And that… could have some very dangerous consequences, especially if her hand made it all the way to the holster at Mack's hip…

Which left Megan no choice but to intervene. She hit the release on the door and simply sauntered on in. She wasn't even sure what the hell she was going to do, but she'd heard an old saying once: "Dazzle them with brilliance. If that doesn't work, riddle them with gunfire." She was hoping to do the first, but expecting to fall back on the second and dreading the eventuality.

"I got another idea, Stevie," she said as she entered the room, her pistol pointed squarely at Mack's chest. Her voice didn't waver, but it took all the bravado she had (and some she had pilfered from… somewhere) to pull off such a feat. "Why don't you back off and I don't turn your head into a soup bowl?"

Amata's head jerked to the side, turning so she could fix her gaze upon the sudden arrival of her friend. She sputtered, clearly surprised to see the redhead standing right there as if nothing out of the ordinary were taking place. The end of the world had come (again) and she was merely standing there, nonchalant as ever. "M-Meg? W-what-"

"Get out of here, Amata." Megan urged her to go, not even sparing her a second glance. The Overseer wasn't that much of a threat: he wasn't armed, and he was standing further away. Steven Mack on the other hand was a good deal nearer, he had a weapon in his hands, and he'd been trained in how to use it. Not to mention his inherent love of violence and the height and weight advantage to make full use of that passion for inflicting pain and misery.

"What are you doing here?"

She couldn't afford to take her eyes off either man, but she had to come up with some kind of answer, if only to get Amata out of the room and to safety. There were certain portions of Megan's brain, portions whose development had been strictly dictated by immeasurably complex sequences of genetic code… the neurons within these segments of her brain fired, causing her mouth to move, her vocal cords to contract, and words emerged. "Your Dad and his lackeys didn't get my invitations for afternoon tea, so I figured I'd come by personally and let 'em know before the scones got cold. Now get out of here. Go. I'll take care of this."

"But-"

"I'll handle it, I promise. Just go."

Amata nodded quietly and carefully stood up from the chair. She eyed Mack warily and backed away from him, then shot her father a vicious glare before slipping past Megan and exiting the room. She disappeared down the hallway, her footsteps fading quickly. A few moments after she'd gone, the Overseer spoke.

"Thank you for keeping her out of this."

Megan snorted. "Are you kidding me? -You- dragged her into this. For God's sake, you were about to have one of your men beat her for information on where I was. No, I didn't do any of this for you. I did this so my best friend doesn't have to live with the horror of having shot two men on her conscience, one of whom was her own father." The corner of her mouth curled downwards in a wicked sneer, and her brow furrowed. The girl was Irish, make no mistake about that, and she had one vicious temper. She normally kept it in check, but there were times when she absolutely refused to rein it in. This was one of those times.

"Shot us? With what? She didn't have a gun," Mack said, taking a step back from the barrel of Megan's pistol but waving the end of his baton around in a dismissive fashion. Even staring down the barrel of a loaded weapon, he was still a shining example of the "cocky security guard," secure in his own self-importance and his place in the Vault hierarchy.

Megan's glower quickly turned into a cruel and heartless smile, devoid of any true humor whatsoever. There was nothing but malice in that grin. She'd become a bloodthirsty predator, intent on devouring the security guard's heart – assuming that was, that he had one. The proverbial jury was still in deliberations. "Didn't she? You wanna check your holster, Mack?"

He did so, and found that the small strap used to keep the gun butt secured had been unfastened. And the gun itself… was gone. "Wha- what the-?" His hand patted the empty weapon holster as if doing so would somehow, through some miracle of the virgin Mary, bring the wayward pistol back to its home. It, of course, did no such thing, though it did earn him an amused snort and a look of scorn from Megan.

"We… we wouldn't have harmed her," the Overseer insisted, holding his hands out, palms forward to try and appear as non-threatening as possible, "we just needed to make her understand how serious the whole matter was. With the disappearance of your father, and this situation with the radroaches, the whole Vault has been thrown into chaos. We needed to find you, and now that we have, this whole… unfortunate business can be resolved peacefully."

Ever the diplomat… she scoffed, nearly choking on a sudden rush of bile into her throat. "Unfortunate business" my pasty, white ass… just like a politician. Enacting a Vault-wide manhunt, sending your goons out to round up people to "question," sanctioning murder… all of it just "unfortunate business." Anything else you'd care to put a nice, pleasant, little spin on? Stick a little happy face on that nuclear holocaust we had about a couple of hundred years back and term it a "minor inconvenience?"

"That's rich," she said with a threatening wave of her handgun. "You hunt me, my father, my friends, and you want to resolve this 'peacefully?' Make it all go away? People are dead, you idiot! You can't just sweep that under the rug, as convenient as that might be for you!" She shook her head emphatically, her nostrils flaring as she slowly aimed the gun at the Overseer, then at his lackey and then back. "So, no, I don't think we're going to do this your way, I think we're going to do this mine. And you want to know what my way is? My way is, I'm giving you boys a time out. You're going in that there cell, and you're going to sit in there and shut your goddamn mouths. You catch my drift? You picking up what I'm putting down? Get it? Got it? Good. You first, Stevie." She made a sharp motion with her gun towards the door of the holding cell.

"Don't call me 'Stevie.'"

She raised the gun and fired, sending a bullet deliberately past Mack's ear where it embedded itself harmlessly into the wood of a bookshelf behind him. She shifted her aim a few inches over, sighting the gun up directly with his forehead. Though this was the first time she'd ever fired a gun in anger, and by all rights, it should've scared her witless, she was running on anger and adrenaline now, everything else just fading into background noise. Her hand didn't waver in the slightest as she held the weapon on Mack. "Important safety tip, Stevie. Don't backtalk the girl with the gun. Inside. Now."

He looked a little shaken from the close call with the bullet, but not shaken enough to refrain from sending waves of white hot death from his eyes as he slowly and carefully stepped through the door from the main Security office into the holding cell.

"There we go," she said. "Now, if you'd be so kind as to take those handcuffs you're so fond of using and secure yourself to the bunk? Both hands, please, Stevie. Pretend you're on a date." She flashed him a smug grin as he locked one end of the cuffs around his wrist, slipped the chain around the end of the bedpost, and then locked the other end of the cuffs to his other wrist. He rattled the handcuffs to show they were solidly locked.

That just left the Overseer to deal with. He, however, wouldn't get off quite so easily. Slowly, Megan turned to face him, and the barrel of her pistol turned with her, settling upon his chest as if it belonged there. To his credit, he didn't flinch, didn't even acknowledge the fact that she could kill him without even a second thought. He was made of stern stuff, she had to admit. But then again, he had to be: his daughter had certainly gotten her grit from somewhere, and it couldn't have just been from her mother. But whatever grudging respect she had for the man, he was a murderer. Perhaps worse, he was a tyrant, and there was very little keeping her from simply putting a bullet in him and being done with the whole godawful mess.

"Looks like it's just you and me, Alphonse," she said, addressing him by his given name. Nobody ever really used it. He'd been sitting "in the big chair" for so long that almost no one knew him as anything other than his title. But she wasn't about to show him any deference. Not now, not ever again. "You know, if I had more time…" she said, and her voice had dropped to a fierce whisper. It was barely audible over the emergency sirens still blaring throughout the rest of the Vault. "I owe you a whole lot of pain and suffering for what you did to Jonas." Her eyes were cold and hard, the images of what she had seen swimming up in front of her – her friend lying dead on the floor of his office, savagely beaten by thugs this man standing in front of her had dispatched. "That man never did anything to hurt anyone, and you had him butchered. For what? Because he -might- have known where my Dad went? Because he -might- have known where I was? Just for that, I should make you -bleed.-"

Her finger tightened on the trigger. So easy. It would be -so- easy. One squeeze. Quick. Simple. Another body on the ground, and a senseless death avenged…

But it wasn't really that simple, was it?

Was it -ever- really that simple?

No. She supposed it never was.

She wasn't naïve enough to believe that killing was never justified, but she couldn't lie to herself, either. If she pulled the trigger now, it wouldn't be about justice, it would be about satisfying her own need for revenge, her own need to see someone pay for the wrongs that had been done to her. It was selfish, and it went against everything she'd ever been taught. "I -should- make you bleed," she continued, "but you're lucky. My father, for all his faults, is a kind man. He'd never want me to do something like that. Not even to the likes of you." She lowered the gun, then, not enough to encourage the Overseer to try anything, but just enough to make it clear she wasn't going to kill him – at least not at that moment. She chuckled, a bit sadly, part of her disappointed that she wasn't going to be able to make the bastard pay for what he'd done, part of her worried that he'd only go on to do worse things in the future… and part of her savoring what she was about to do next.

"You know, he always said it was the mark of a great and noble soul to show mercy." At that point she did put the gun away, tucking it back into one of her jumpsuit's pockets. But in the same motion, she closed the short distance between her and the Overseer, moving impossibly quick – far too quick for the slowing reflexes of someone of his advancing age to counter. Her knee caught him right between the legs, driving forward and upward with all the rage and pain she could muster – and there was a lot of it.

She stepped back from him as he collapsed to the ground with a strangled gasp. He groaned as she nudged his shoulder with her toe and rolled him over onto his back. His hands were cupped about his groin and his face was contorted with pain and part of her drew a sick sense of satisfaction from seeing him suffer that way.

Ok, so I didn't take -all- of Dad's lectures to heart.

"So I'm not great," she said as she retrieved another set of handcuffs from a storage locker and began dragging the Overseer into the cell. She took his hands (he wasn't feeling up to resisting) and bound them to another one of the cot's bedposts. "I'll settle for good." She stood up after making sure the handcuffs were secure and headed for the door, but stopped midstride, turned and gave Alphonse (who was still lying curled up on the floor, groaning miserably) a sharp kick to the ribs. He yelped, and she shrugged. "I'm all right."

-----

Overseer's Office

Vault 101

Megan found Amata at the door to the Overseer's Office, down on one knee, a hairpin in each hand and a tiny flashlight gripped between her teeth. Her fingers worked back and forth as she tried without success to get the lock open. One of the pins snapped, and she swore. Briefly. Comprehensively. Filthily. Not that the words made any sense, with the end of the flashlight keeping her tongue from moving properly, but it was the thought that counted. She sighed in frustration, turning and resting her back against the wall, burying her head in the palm of her hand.

"Hey," Megan said, quietly so as not to startle her.

She was startled anyway, her head picking up so quickly she thunked the back of it against the wall behind her.

"Ow," Meg chuckled, but she also winced sympathetically. She'd hit her own head tons of times – it was a wonder she had any brain cells left. Come to think of it, there were many who'd argue she ran out years ago.

"M-my father…" Amata began, the sharp pain radiating from the back of her skull temporarily forgotten as her thoughts leapt to more important (more important for her, at any rate) matters. "Is he-"

The redhead crouched down and patted her friend's knee. "He's… ok… kinda."

The use of the qualifier drew Amata's attention and her eyes widened. "What did you-"

"I kneed your Dad in the balls. He'll live. He won't be happy… well, he's never happy, but you get my point... anyway, long story short, he's still breathing."

Amata nodded and then chuckled sadly. She squeezed the hand Megan had rested upon her knee. "You always did have a way with people."

"Yes, I -am- quite the adorable misanthrope, aren't I?" Her jocular smile faded almost instantly. "Did they hurt you?"

"No. But they were gonna."

There wasn't all that much to say to that. Megan had seen for herself what had been going on, and after what had happened to Jonas, it wasn't that much of a stretch to picture… well, to picture…

She shook her head. Things -hadn't- gone that way; she'd made sure of it, and there was no point in filling her brain with "could-have-beens" at a time like this. "You know… you could… you could come with me."

Amata managed a small, wan smile; she shook her head. "I can't."

"Look, I know it's scary out there, but… maybe with the two of us…"

"It's not that… I'm not afraid… I should be, but I'm not. Comes from spending too much time around you, I guess," she commented, punctuating her statement with a sharp laugh. "It's just… look at this place. Look at what's happened. The Vault's a mess. Someone… someone's gotta stay behind, try and talk some sense into my father. No one else can do it, no one else even wants to try…"

"Can you blame them? The man nearly had his goons beat information out of you… and you're his daughter, for crying out loud. And… and then what they did to Jonas…" Her protests died on her lips; it was as if her voice had simply abandoned her.

"I… I know. Being the daughter of the Overseer doesn't mean a damn thing around here, I know that… but… but I can't run. Just like you can't stay. You need to go find your Dad, and I… I need to try and -save- mine."

There didn't seem to be much point in trying to change her mind. As stubborn as Megan could be, Amata had determination unmatched. She'd made her decision, and no matter how much Megan disagreed with it, no matter how much she feared for her friend's safety – even more than for her own, if the truth were to be told, years of experience had taught her that there was only one thing to do once Amata had made up her mind: back her up, or get the hell out of her way. It was a quality she both admired and that drove her absolutely up-the-wall crazy. "Just like you to play the hero," she said with a rueful chuckle.

"'s what you get for letting me borrow all your back issues of Grognak the Barbarian."

-----

Amata's fingers flashed over the computer keyboard, and her eyes darted from left to right and back as green text flicked rapidly across the black screen. She let out a low whistle and ejected another disc from the terminal's drive, sliding it across the desk to Megan who promptly fed it into the reader slot on her Pip Boy. "There's tons of data archived on my Dad's terminal," she said. Her voice had a bit of a distracted, droning edge to it, a constant hum, much like the steady tapping noise her fingers made against the keyboard's keys as she worked. "Looks like he lied to us about no one ever leaving. He sent out survey teams several times over the past couple of decades. None recently, but he's still got all the reconnaissance reports logged on his computer. There's maps, photos, transcripts of the team members' debriefings." She shook her head and whistled again, this one softer and more drawn out as her eyes nearly glazed over at the massive influx of data being dumped onto the screen. "You'll want to read all this stuff when you have time."

Megan was busy loading all the data she could into storage on her Pip Boy just in case the hard copies were lost or destroyed. "Gimme some highlights real quick?"

"Uh, ok… there's a settlement nearby that one of the survey teams found. Just a couple of miles away from the Vault, to the southeast, according to the report. The team leader mentions some stuff about the local population. Don't know how much of that data is still accurate after so long…" She frowned and chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip as she skimmed a little more of the text. "She brings up the idea of trading with them… um… huh. That's… ok, that's weird."

"What's weird?" Megan had taken the holodisc Amata had given her, copied its contents to her Pip Boy and tossed the disc itself into one of her jumpsuit's many pockets. She'd worry about her slow metamorphosis into a shuffling heap of sentient, metallic scrap later.

"They use bottlecaps as money on the outside."

"Come again?"

"I'm serious."

"What idiot would use bottlecaps as currency?"

Amata looked up from the terminal, her eyebrows raised considerably, and she shrugged. "Hey, don't look at me, I don't live out there. I'm just reading what's in the report. The same report -you- should be reading," she pointed out, her voice taking on a bit of a chastising edge. "Please tell me you haven't just been sitting there like a lump."

"An extremely good looking and charismatic lump." The redhead flashed her most winning smile.

Unfortunately, all she got in return was a roll of the eyes and a frustrated sigh. "Did you find anything -useful?-"

"Pkkkgggee ffff Fffnnnccy Lllllddssss nnnnn mmmmhhhhh paaahhhkkttt… waaaann wwunn?" Megan held out her hand. In that hand was a small white cardboard box with "Fancy Lads Snack Cakes" stamped boldly on the side. Inside -that-, still wrapped in cellophane, was a tiny chocolate cupcake daintily decorated with vanilla frosting.

Amata looked up once more from her work, her expression one of stunned disbelief. Megan was on the run for her -life,- and yet she'd miraculously found the time to stop and have a snack. The world had most certainly taken a turn for the surreal, and yet, while Amata found herself floundering, Megan looked almost completely composed - the calm center at the middle of a whirling maelstrom of confusion and insanity. She couldn't quite understand how her friend could manage to maintain such poise in the face of all that was happening, but as the brunette looked more closely, she found her answer - the secret as to how Megan was holding on to that oh-so-precious calm.

She wasn't.

It was a brilliant facade, Amata had to admit; it looked genuine enough, the seemingly casual indifference to all the danger, the cavalier attitude, the off-color jibes, the way the girl was offering her a damned cupcake, of all things, at a time like this. Her confidence was supreme; nothing could touch her - at least... that was the image she presented. But underneath it all, there was a crack or two... just a small one here or there, barely noticeable if one didn't know what to look for. But the two of them had grown up together, they knew each other like sisters, and Amata -did- know what to look for. There was an edge to Megan she'd never seen before; the girl was -scared,- and who could blame her - everything was changing, everything familiar disappearing. She wanted... she -needed- something to stay the same.

A lot of things could change in the space of a few short moments. Some things never would.

"Gimme." Amata reached out and took the little snack cake from the redhead's palm. Her fingers fumbled for a few moments with the wrapper before Megan, rolling her eyes and stifling a smirk, snatched it from her hands and peeled the cellophane open in one quick, easy motion. She handed the cupcake back with a flourish, like a magician at the denouement of a particularly crafty illusion.

"Thanks. But I'm not going to applaud," Amata said, dryly.

Megan gave a sad little shrug, resigned to suffer her friend's eternal ingratitude, and watched as the brunette raised the little snack treat in salute before taking a bite. For the next thirty seconds, further communication between the two girls was limited to vague hand gestures and vaguer grunts since they had both been rendered temporarily incapable of speaking.

The silence continued for another minute or so as Amata polished off her cupcake, which gave her time to further comb through her father's files. "You know, I haven't had one of those in a while," she said, once she'd finished eating. "They're good, but I swear they go straight to my hips." She paused, her train of thought catching up with her mouth and both of them coming to a screeching halt. "Meg, stop picturing me naked."

The redhead smiled, but it was a mere shadow of its normal brilliance - missing its customary sparkle. In the past, Megan's smile was, almost without fail, a harbinger of playful mischief... but not this time. Try as she might to keep her spirits up, she'd experienced an entire lifetime's worth of anguish in a single night, with more yet to come. It was becoming very difficult to stay upbeat under those manner of circumstances, but she had to try. It was who she was. "Too late," she said, her smile widening just a touch. She laughed.

A second later, so did Amata.

Not that the joke had been all that particularly funny.

"Listen, I think I got something," Megan said after another moment or two. She slid around to Amata's side of the desk and turned her wrist so that the other girl could read the display. "This looks kinda interesting."

"What's up?"

"Check out when these files were last accessed."

"Huh. Well, there's the record of -our- accessing them, but before that… the last time they were viewed was… earlier today?" Amata's brow furrowed in mild confusion as she processed the implications of that. It didn't take her long to come to the same conclusions that Megan had drawn seconds earlier.

"Exactly. And somehow I doubt your Dad was using these for bedtime reading."

"Which means…"

Megan brightened. "Which means -my- Dad probably went and grabbed himself copies before he left." She chuckled. "Oh, the old man had a streak of larceny in him after all."

Amata snorted and gave Megan a playful backhanded slap on the hip. "Jesus, Meg, you're positively glowing with pride."

"Well, of course I am. It's not every day you find out your father's a vicious rabble rouser just like yourself. I always thought I got that sort of thing from my Mom; it's just nice to know the troublemaking genes are spread across both sides of my family."

"Uh huh."

-----

Atrium

Vault 101

Yellow warning lights flashed; an alarm sounded, warning everyone to get the hell away from the massive, grinding machinery and its scraping of gears and gnashing of metal teeth as it strained to roll away the colossal steel plug that had long sat between the inhabitants of Vault 101 and the horror-filled wastes that lay outside the vaunted protection of their precious Vault.

If the Overseer's unceasing indoctrination was to be believed, that cog-shaped door hadn't budged a millimeter since the day it had rolled shut, sealing that first generation of settlers inside however many years ago. Their solemn duty as they understood it – to survive, and some day in the distant future, once the earth had become habitable again, to repopulate the surface of the world – had been forgotten… or perhaps, more appropriately, cast aside in favor of the Overseer's own agenda: to keep an entire population in eternal, dismal isolation for the rest of their dreary existences.

Whatever the case, it was remarkable the door's mechanism was in as good shape as it was. The equipment had been well maintained and still functioned as it should, hundreds of years after its initial construction. Amata stood by the control panel, her mouth wide open and her eyes unblinking as the Vault door with its giant, engraved "101" rolled aside and dank, foul-smelling air wafted in through the opening. It was the first breath she'd ever taken of air that had not been cycled through several dozen purifiers, scrubbers, filters, and oxidizers, and laced though it was with the rotten-egg stench of sulfur, it was still air from the -outside,- coming in through the narrow tunnel that led to the cave mouth through which the Vault access door could be reached.

"Wow… you… you did it."

"-We- did it."

The two friends stared into the dim tunnel that stretched out beyond the Vault door and into the unknown. Neither moved, though Amata spoke. "Meg. There's no way all that racket went unheard. Security's gonna be here any second. You… you should go."

The redhead nodded, but she still didn't make any move to head towards the open door. The Vault had always been her home. It hadn't been the ideal existence – she could've done without Susie Mack – the uppity little witch – or those idiotic Tunnel Snakes being such a ridiculous pain in the posterior. She certainly wouldn't have minded fewer run-ins with Amata's pompous blowhard of a father, but even with all its rough spots, the Vault was familiar, and it was home… and even knowing her father was out there, somewhere, in that huge expanse of unexplored, alien wasteland, populated by strange, and likely exceptionally dangerous people… even knowing that she had to find him, it was hard bringing herself to leave. She didn't want to go… at least not alone. "Last chance to come with me." She smiled sadly, like someone about to ask a question they already knew the answer to – and that answer was a disappointing one. "Don't expect you to take it."

Amata turned her head and looked at her, crestfallen, but as sad as she was, she'd chosen her path; she'd set her course. "You know I can't." She didn't need to explain any further.

"I know." A sniffle. "I'm… I'm gonna miss you." But no tears. They wanted to come; she wouldn't let them – not out of any ridiculous sense of machismo, but because too much had happened, and parts of her were still numb. She'd suffered too much in such a short amount of time, and in a way, she was still trying to come to grips with all she'd lost, still trying to sort out -what- she'd lost before she could grieve for it. Though one thing was clear enough: she felt as if she were about to lose Amata – perhaps forever.

The other girl could see the pain in the blue eyes that clung to her face, knew she had to reassure her friend that they'd be reunited someday, maybe even someday soon. "Hey, hey, hey… quite talking like that. I'll see you. You'll be back. You'll go, you'll find your Dad, bring him home. Few weeks, tops." The girl, God bless her, actually seemed to believe what she was saying. "I'll bet you a week's worth of ration coupons on it."

But while Amata seemed certain, Megan wasn't. Still, as difficult as it was, she managed a small smile, trying to put a brave face on the whole business, if only for the sake of those she was leaving behind… and perhaps more than a little for her own sake as well. "Heh. You're on. So… kiss for luck?"

"Sure." The brunette reached out with both hands, placed them on her friend's shoulders and pulled the redhead close. She squeezed her tight, then gave her an affectionate kiss on the cheek, ruffling her hair as she pulled away.

"I was thinking tongue luck."

They'd both known Megan was going to make the joke. There was too much melancholy in the air at that time for her to refrain from breaking the tension any other way. So it was no surprise when Amata chuckled and gave her departing friend a light punch to the arm. "You're disgusting," she said, her voice a gently chastising whisper that, like it always had, and always would, still held a trace of amusement.

"Had to try."