HALO – FALLOUT
By
D. L. Hemmingway
I own neither HALO nor Fallout, but I have played Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Shelter, and Fallout 4. The Fallout series was created by Tim Cain and Interplay Entertainment. The original Fallout was marketed by Black Isle Studios, and so was its first sequel Fallout 2. Fallout Shelter and Fallout 4 were released by Bethesda. HALO was developed by Bungie originally and currently is managed and marketed by 343 Industries for Microsoft's X-Box Studios. As for Halo I have only read fanfiction and some of the associated novels.
Well, I have taken up some of your valuable time, so let's get on with the story.
OCTOBER 2287
Nathaniel Addams stood staring out across the valley where the island his former home rested in a lake. As far as he could see from the platform of the elevator for Vault 111 everything looked blasted or dead. From this vantage point even the little Concord suburb of Sanctuary Hills was a wreck. The steel retro-Home of Tomorrow houses that made up the one road Cal-du-sac town were in various states of collapse and disrepair.
A few minutes ago, he had just thawed out from cryogenic stasis. Now after seeing his wife's pod empty and battling mutated cockroaches while scavenging what supplies he may need including a couple of collapsible security batons and a couple of 10 mm pistols, Nate was seeing the world as it is, not as it used to be for the first time.
"I have to get something other than this Vault Suit to wear," he said looking at the mostly standing remains of his own house two houses to the east of the footbridge and the trail that led to the Vault. He could barely make out the manhole cover that hid the entrance to his and Nora's bolt hole. The couple had spent some of their post service earnings building facility with the help of an Architect who specialized in designing Vaults for Vault-Tec. Though the woman worked for Vault-Tec she did several similar jobs for veterans of the Sino-American War under the table and off the books. Much of the interior of their refuge used Vault-Tec Architecture and Engineering. "First though I had better find what I can up here to help me survive in this 'Brave New World,'" He said sarcastically to himself as he headed over to the nearby external Control Pod for the Vault's elevator.
Inside the Pod he found a full bottle of Nuka Cola and two empties. Also, from an industrial first aid box he scavenged a couple more stimpacks. In a yellow storage chest, he found some Radaway, two units, and a couple of Molotov Cocktails. "Hmm… looks like someone cashed these here," Nate said has he also found a cross-shoulder sling bag with which to carry some of his loot. He put the Molotovs into a couple of exterior pouches and loaded the former beer, now water bottles into the interior main pouch along the spare boxes of 10mm ammo, stimpacks, Radaway and uncooked (yet) chunks of giant roach meat which he had bundled up in a Vault-Tec lab coats along with two extra Vault Suits. The sling bag was about the size of a medium military rucksack.
He slung that over his shoulder so that the upper part of the strap rested on his right shoulder and the strap ran across his chest wrapping around his left waist at the bottom of the pack. Then to steady the pack he fastened the chest belt. "Now I'll check those other crates over by the old excavator," he told himself out loud as he stuffed a combination wrench, he found on a small table in the pod.
After leaving the pod he found more Radaway, some Rad-X, a small cooking pot, a cracked glass bowl, another Molotov, and some pre-war money (about $50 US.) "This cash may not be of any value now, but it may be good as tender for starting fires," He mused. Inside another pod on the property of the Vault he found an old desk fan, a coffee pot, some more coffee cups, another box of 10 mm cartridges, a switchblade knife, an ashtray, and a bottle cap for Nuka Cola. Why he took the cap he hadn't quite figured out yet.
While did another 360 scan of the area he noticed something that looked like a hunter's blind up on the peak of a nearby hill that was possibly another summit for the one the Vault called home. So, he took off across the Vault's exterior storage yard past cargo containers and rusted out hulks of vehicles out the North Gate and then took a Northwesterly azimuth towards what he thought was a makeshift hunter's blind.
At the blind Nate found two paper cartons of water that when he checked them out looked like their contents needed boiled and filtered before consuming. Also, he found an Emergency Management Agency can of purified water. All of which he packed away in his pack. Taking another sighting on his old house he descended the rocky southern slope of what has come to call Vault Hill toward the creek separating it from Sanctuary Hill or the island that was home of the Sanctuary Hills development and his home.
Where needed he steadied his descent by using trees to help him climb down the relatively steep slope. Once down at the north shore of the creek he just ran across the inches deep creek to the south shore. Then he scaled the rocky north slope of Sanctuary Hill until he reached where the trail from the Vault connected with Sanctuary Hills Road the only street in the development. Coming around to the front of the house that stood to the west of his he couldn't believe his eyes.
There using his buzzsaw attachment was Codsworth the Addams' Mister Handy robot. Nate slowly made his way to just shore of Codsworth and cleared his through, "Ahem…" Then he said, "Codsworth?" He watched as two of Codsworth's three eye stocks rotated towards him. The eye-like cameras locked on to him and Nate swore it looked like Codsworth did a double take. Then the robot rotated his spherical body and looked at Nate with all three eyes. The irises of which each adjusted as if Codsworth was focusing on he like he was under a microscope.