Chapter 2: "Rep" For Short
Holodisk log. Resident 53-10385. January 23rd, 2285.
I knew it was a risk. I had to tell someone. Every damn time, I swear to God. I shoulda kept her out of it...
Oh, right, I guess I should start from the beginning. AHEM! My name is... Well, my name isn't important. I'm a repairman. Up until recently, I was Senior Vault Maintenance Engineer of Vault 53. Huh, trying to find the beginning is hard. Well, we'll just start where this kinda starts. I was just run out of my Vault. It's not easy leaving home. I ran into these creepy Night of the Living Dead rejects as I was making my way around this town. Some joint they used to call, "Joliet." As I was walking down the road, these bastards jumped me and tried to... What's the word? "Mug" me?
I managed to get away from them by using a little experimental piece of equipment I made repairing the old plasma pistols for the security guys. If it weren't for my ability to improvise, I would have been ashes thanks to that AER9 Laser Rifle that dried up piece of beef jerky was holding. Nevertheless, I managed to survive that headache and now I'm heading southwest. I've come upon a residential area in this town looking for refuge. This area of the United States still has its normal weather patterns - if not a bit more exaggerated than before - so the cold is starting to take its toll on me. It doesn't help that I'm sick and sweating because it's just making me colder faster. I hope there's a building nearby I can at least build a fire in or else I'm gonna die. This is Resident 53-10385 signing off.
It was getting dark. The temperature was dropping as fast as the sun was dipping below the horizon. The "Vault Dweller" held himself by the shoulders hoping to retain as much heat as possible. Intuition was one of those things people where he came from avoided believing in because of the hokey mama jama involved with it, but for some reason he couldn't dismiss his senses telling him to go down the alleyway to his left. Then again, he thought, that's the reason I'm freaking cold in the first place. He stood on the old snow-covered street and thought about it. He shook his head, "Fuck it," and started down the alleyway.
He looked around. It seemed as though a good number of houses in this area were spared massive concussive blasts left by the dropping nuclear weapons from centuries' past. If anything, there was neglect and decay, but no real burn marks or massive amounts of radioactive substances. This seemed like a logical place to settle in for the night.
There was a large green and white house at the end of the alleyway. It looked as though it was under construction when the attack happened years ago. All was starting to go dark for him. He couldn't feel his hands or his feet. Right then and there, he picked this place as his shelter for the night. As he started to approach the back door to the house, he looked down to the ground. The freshly fallen snow was marked with the footprints of another individual. Being cold, sick, and tired, he knew it was either here or death by freezing.
As he walked through the back yard, he started feeling his legs getting weak. He knew it was getting close. He couldn't reach the stairs to the back door. He started groaning loudly as he fell to his knees and started pulling himself against the snow-covered ground toward the back steps. He was tired. So very tired. He cried out in mind-numbing agony as he kept pulling himself toward the steps. His upper arms were becoming as numb as the rest of him. This is it, he thought, I'm gonna die right here, feet from salvation.
The door to the old house flew open, the cocking sound of a 10mm pistol before him. He looked up and found something that throughout all his years he thought he'd never see. With his near-frozen tired eyes, through his frost-covered glasses, he saw something beautiful before passing out.
An angel...
Hours had passed.
He awoke to find himself in front of a fireplace; lit, warm, and keeping the once chilly blue suit he was wearing comfortable for him to wear again. The only thought on his mind was to crawl toward the fire and get warmer. He got on all fours and did exactly that...
"Hold it, cocksucker!" a female voice rang out along with the sound of a gun magazine being loaded into a gun, "Don't move, not even to piss, got that?!"
"You know how to make a guy feel welcome," he said without turning around.
The sound of boots approached him from behind as he suddenly felt a sharp kick placed into his left rib cage. The force knocked the man over on his side and again, he lost his hat. The sound of the previously heard 10mm pistol cocking as the barrel was pointed in his face.
He cleared his eyes from under his glasses as he adjusted his sight. His eyes came back into focus as she spoke again, "Shut the fuck up! I won't hesitate to make you a bloody mess!"
She was very beautiful. Brown hair in a ponytail, brown eyes, light muscular build. He had never seen any woman like her before. She was dressed in a black leather jacket covered in metal plating. The metal plating, which was oddly colorful, had raised numbers and letters pressed into them. She had two bandoleers covering the jacket loaded with matching bullets for the gun she was holding.
"Get up!" she screamed. She shook the gun and screamed out again, "Now!" He strained as he stood up, hands over his head. He noticed his jacket was missing along with his pistol. His bag was beside where he was lying, but it didn't become apparent until he stood and noticed the lack of weight on his dominant leg. "Okay, jerkoff," she announced, "what the fuck are you doing here? You a fucking Slaver?"
He cocked his head to the side, "A what?"
BANG! The smell of gunpowder and the immediate sound of glass shattering later, the woman's gun barrel is now smoking, an indicator of her annoyance, "Don't you even dare play stupid! You came armed!" She lowered her gun and pulled his plasma pistol out.
"You think I'm gonna go out there unarmed?!" he yelled, "I've already been kicked out of my Vault, then I got these rotting corpses shooting at me, and then I damn near froze to death..."
"Wait!" She interrupted, "You really came from a Vault? You mean the suit isn't a ruse?"
"You think I'm wearing this thing as a decoration?!" He pointed to the device on his left arm, "It's my fucking Pip-Boy!"
She drew attention to his plasma pistol again, raising it up, "You talk a good game, but you suck at playing it. How do I know you didn't just shoot a Vault Dweller and steal his shit?!"
"Well..."
"I don't, and frankly," she turned the pistol on, "I don't give a fuck!" She pulled the pistol's trigger...
Nothing happened.
The Vault Dweller quickly grabbed the pistol from her grip and grabbed the arm with the 10mm before she could raise it, forcing her to drop the other gun. She resisted, but only until he activated his own pistol and a priming sound emanated from it. "Okay, Toots, here's how it's done..."
"My name," she said gritting her teeth, "is Cheryl." "Okay, Cheryl, for starters, I really am one of these, 'Vault Dwellers,' as you call me. This morning I was run out. I was lucky to get out of there with my skin considering both my size and stamina. I'm sick as a dog, and I'm seriously not in the mood to be proclaimed another fucking thing I'm not!"
Cheryl looked him in face. Her eyes were burning with anger and hatred, "You motherfucker." "Hey!" his voice boomed. She flinched slightly, but quickly reasserted herself, if only in stance. The blue clad man just as quickly softened his voice, "You want me to call you by your name, then you call me by mine. Fair?"
Cheryl. It took him a moment, but he thought about her name. It was very pretty. Of all the women he had known in the Vault, there was only one that liked him, and even then there was a circumstance that prevented him from being with her. No matter how much he wanted to fight back, he couldn't because the guy was the Overseer's son. She was denied to him and it was something he had to deal with. Especially now that he's out and what he had attempted to do with her… didn't matter. Now he was out. Completely. It was almost like there was a noble God trying to bring him and this woman – this Cheryl – together. To him, it didn't feel right; after what happened today, he couldn't feel it. Despite the fact he thinks God is a total prick, maybe this was his way to help him immediately rebuild. On the same token, considering the foot they started out on, God may still be a total prick depending on tonight's outcome.
Cheryl gritted her teeth again, but closed her eyes and tilted her head down before nodding.
"Okay, then," the Vault Dweller turned around and went to his bag. After digging around in the bag, he pulled out a few cans of "Greasy Prospector Baked Beans." "Hey, you hungry?"
"Wow," Cheryl stated bluntly, "you must be a Vault Dweller; only an idiot would share his food with someone who was just trying to kill him." "Hey, I almost froze to death out there," he handed her a can, "You had to somewhat believe I wasn't an evil guy, otherwise you would have just let me freeze. Would have saved you a bullet anyway. Besides," he took out and threw a spare Vault-Tec can opener toward her, "I can't really stomach much right now. Might as well let someone put it to good use."
Cheryl caught the can opener mid air. After a moment of looking at it she dropped it, then took out a large hunting knife and sat on the floor in front of the fire. The man raised an eyebrow from behind his glasses, "You know, the can opener would have been easier."
As she plunged the knife into the top of the tin can, she grunted, "If you recall, I tried to shoot you with your own gun," She managed to cut a jagged hole in the top of the can, sending the top piece of metal flying into the darkness of the room. "Lucky for you, you forgot to reload the damn energy cells."
He sat down then took the pistol back out, "No I didn't." He quickly turned it on and fired a bolt of plasma into the fire, making it flare up with a bright green flame. Cheryl jumped and covered her eyes. After the fire died down, the Vault Dweller leaned forward, grabbed his fallen hat, and put it back on before pulling out a Swiss Army knife, taking the can opener out. True he wasn't feeling good, but he still needed to eat something.
As he opened his own can, Cheryl uncovered her eyes and looked at him, "How the fuck did you do that?! It didn't work for me!" "Easy," he said, taking the top of his can and throwing it in the fire, "I built the gun myself. It's programmed to recognize my DNA only."
"You built it?"
"Yep," He put away the can opener utensil and unfolded the spoon.
"How?"
"Used a spare Pip-Boy's biometric lock as a DNA encoder. I'm a Vault Engineer. I'm basically an over-glorified repairman."
After an hour, the space between Cheryl, the Vault Dweller, and the fireplace was littered with various foodstuff packaging. Everything ranging from empty CRAM tins to crushed Insta-Mash boxes were on the floor among other items. The blue suited man laid on the floor, using his rucksack as a support as he relaxed in front of the now slightly dimmed fire.
Cheryl was nursing a bottle of Nuka-Cola, appearing far more calm and relaxed than earlier in the evening, "I had my doubts. I thought you were a complete scumbag." "Funny," the Vault man replied, "I thought the phrase, 'A way into someone's heart is through their stomach,' only applied to men."
Cheryl took a quick swig of her Nuka-Cola, finishing it off and tossing it to the side, "I said, 'Complete scumbag.' I still have some doubts. That makes you only quarter scumbag."
"Hey," he said, "it's a start, right? At least you won't shoot me."
"I can't very well shoot a guy who's name I never caught."
"That's mostly because I never threw it." That put a slight smile on her face. As she reached for another bottle of Nuka-Cola, she pointed the top of the bottle toward the jumpsuited man beside her, "You asked me to call you by your name. Do you have a name, or do I call you, 'Hey, You'?"
He pulled his Swiss Army knife out and pulled out the can opener again, "They call me, 'Repairman.' 'Rep,' for short." With that, he popped the cap on her bottle, her grabbing it out of the air before it hit the floor. She had a sweet smile on her face, him returning it in kind.
"Well," she said coyly, "Nice to meet you, 'Rep.'" She took a swig of the new bottle of flat cola.
