Chapter 8

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Lydia didn't leave her room for three days after her father died.

Amata had come in shouting and crying about something, so hysterical that it took Lydia a few minutes to calm her down enough to understand her. She finally got the message across, saying something had happened to him and Jonas. Amata tried to stop her from leaving her room, but Lydia shoved past and ran through the halls to find them.

When she got there, a crowd of security officers was already in a rough circle in the room, looking down at something. She thrust two of them aside to see.

When they saw her there, they hurried to block her view and move her away from the scene. Officer Gomez held her arm and gently but firmly took her out of the room. But she had already seen him, and all the blood staining is white coat.

Tap tap-tap tap-tap. Amata kept coming by. She was the only one who did. It wasn't that no one else cared—Lydia just wasn't very close with anyone else in the vault. In any case, she ignored the knocking. On the day her father and Jonas were killed, she barricaded herself in her room. Security could have unlocked the door if they wanted to, but they didn't. No one but Amata tried to contact her. Until the fourth day, at least.

Amata knocked on the door. Lydia was lying on the couch. She continued to stare at the ceiling. When she didn't answer the door after the second knock, Amata spoke through the intercom.

"Lydia? Will you please open the door?"

Lydia closed her eyes.

"Lydia, I know you're in there."

"Go away," she said, almost too quietly to be heard on the other side of the intercom.

There was an audible sigh, and Amata spoke haltingly in reply. "Look, I know you're upset. Everyone knows that—we understand. We're just worried about you. You must need someone to talk to. It isn't good for you to stay locked up all by yourself." She paused, maybe waiting for her to reply. "Also...you need to start thinking about your responsibility to the vault. There's no one else here who knows anything about medicine."

Still, Lydia gave no reply.

"Lydia...they're going to open the door today either way. They want to make sure you're okay and...and ask some questions about your dad. I just wanted to warn you." The intercom switched off.

A few minutes passed. Then Lydia slowly sat up on her couch. She had not thought about the vault needing a new doctor. It alarmed her. Why did they think she was qualified for such a thing? She helped her dad, she'd read his books, but she was no doctor. She had never really thought about being his replacement. It was always a possibility, but only that, and she certainly had never thought it would come this soon.

But Amata was right. With Jonas gone, there was no better candidate. And while she couldn't care less about what the Overseer wanted or about her 'responsibility to the vault', she did care about the large number of innocent people in the vault who still needed a doctor. And she knew it was what her father would have expected of her.

She changed her suit, tied her hair back, and went outside. Amata was gone. She was relieved to find no one in the hallways, or in the kitchen. She looked at her Pip-Boy. It was eleven AM. All the other kids were in class, and all the adults were working. She hadn't been in for school at all this week, she realized. No one had mentioned the absences to her, though. The GOAT was in a week. She guessed it didn't matter now. She probably wouldn't have time for school any more, either.

She was washing her dishes when the door opened, and the last person in the world that she wanted to see walked in.

"Well," said Mr. Almodovar. "Good to see you're still with us. We were all beginning to wonder about you." He set his coffee mug on the counter next to her. "It's good that you have the maturity to realize that the good of the vault comes before all else. I know this is hard for you. It was terrible that it had to happen, but in time, I think you will realize that it was for the best."

Lydia didn't look at him, but glared at the mug, tears streaming down her face. She was absolutely sure that she never had felt, nor ever again would feel such pure hatred for anyone. She picked up the coffee mug, turned, and barely kept herself from hurling it at him. Instead, it crashed against the opposite wall and shattered.

"The murder of my dad and Jonas was for the best?" she screamed, struggling to maintain enough composure to form coherent sentences. "My dad never hurt anyone. All he ever did was try to help people, and you killed him."

Mr. Almodovar looked calmly at the shattered mug, then back up at her. "I did not, in fact. A security officer, who was doing his job, did. Your father and his assistant were jeopardizing the safety of Vault 101 and its citizens. I can see you need some more to come to terms with this, but someday you will understand. With age comes wisdom. Until then, I hope that you can learn from your father's mistakes and that my daughter will be able to talk some sense into you."

He picked up the pieces of the broken mug, and left. As the door slid shut behind him, Lydia stalked out the other door. She didn't know where she was going, but she was too furious to stand still. When it first happened, she had been to shocked and horrified to even move. Now, she wished she could do to the Overseer and his security force what they had done to her father. How could they do this to him? And to Jonas? And to her?

He had devoted himself to improving the lives of others, and look what he'd gotten for it.

Three people in leather jackets rounded the corner at the end of the hallway. Lydia was only half surprised to see them—she hadn't expected to see anyone in these back hallways, but it made sense that they would be hiding back here if they were cutting class. She was in no mood to turn around and go the other way. She was ready for a fight, even if she would lose.

But to her surprise, they moved aside when she came near. There was no further interaction between them as she passed. She turned the corner at the end of the hall, then paused when she heard someone coming after her.

"Hey," said Butch, "that's really fucked up what they did to your dad and Jonas."

Lydia wiped her face and turned to face him. "I know."

"They think they can just do whatever they want. Like they own us. They're always doing shit like they're the gods of the vault. Now they're killing people. It's bullshit."

The intensity of his anger surprised her. "I thought they'd try to cover it up," she said.

"If they did, us Tunnel Snakes'd make sure everyone knew."

"They would forget."

He scowled, and she knew he thought the same thing, deep down. "Everyone keeps saying how sad it is, 'how terrible' and 'poor Lydia'. But nobody says how the Overseer's a piece of shit."

Lydia nodded miserably, and Butch stepped a little closer.

"Paul and Wally...they're pissed off too, but they don't get it. They think they do, but they don't. This whole vault is messed up. It always has been, and you and me are the only ones who ever notice."

He looked away, recovering from the confession. "I hate the place," he muttered.

"Me too."

She did. And she decided that the Overseer was right about one thing: she would learn from her father's mistakes. She knew now what probably should have been clear all along—she didn't belong here, and she couldn't stay here for the rest of her life. She would stay long enough to train another doctor, and then she would succeed where her father had failed. She was going to leave 101.