1

The Lone Wanderer moaned. She needed to get her Pip-Boy looked at while she was here if it was this hard to open the door to the place. It had long ago been decided that if she was unwelcome or if opening to the outside world was untenable that her inability to come back would be obvious: the terminal missing, an overt software message, something. This difficulty was just a post-nuclear holocaust giving birth to a world that was way too hard on a wearable computer...she hoped. Fortunately, it turned out it was - once the connection was secure, Vault 101's door garnered her access.

And immediately the interface' speaker started screaming at her. "Is that you?", Overseer Amata demanded.

"Yeah, I/"

"Get down to the lowest level and back Security. Now.", Almodovar commanded.

The Lone Wanderer drew her mask back on. Making certain the impenetrable door was closing behind her, she took off at a run. Her duffel bag appeared in the arms of a vault dweller who barely noticed the breeze left by something she only thought she saw.

Soon enough, she reached the corridor. Vault security had taken cover on both sides, with one side readying to run into the corridor. In the hallway, another member of vault security was on the ground trying to throw one of the five rad roaches away from himself but it just kept coming. The Lone Wanderer allowed herself a smile before adopting a more serious face when she deactivated her suit.

"You, follow me in.", she told the team. In nearly the blink of an eye, the rad roach on the man had been sliced in half with the remnants twitching in response to the electrical charges of her blade. The security team had barely gotten their comrade back before the remaining insects were dead. She double checked V.A.T.S. and found another, dispatching it before giving an all clear.

The members of security that weren't treating their fellow breathed a sigh of relief. The Lone Wanderer walked right past the injured guard who had suffered at least two bites and inch across that bruised him through his Vault-Tec issued suit and armor.

Overseer Almodovar walked up carrying her bag. "Is our vault secure?", Amata asked her while dropping the bag at her feet to embrace her.

"Our vault?", the Lone Wanderer replied while accepting the hug. "That sounds like commie-talk."

Amata laughed and moved her head to kiss her. The other woman dodged. "None of this until I get cleared by medical. And who knows what the mask picked up." The injured security man was lifted to his feet by two others and helped toward the infirmary. "Which may not be for a while." She buried her face in Amata's neck and strengthened her hug while carefully pointing the blade of her sword away from the woman. "Then a lot of this. Tell your husband he won't be seeing you for a while."

"He knows. Who else is overseeing the door locking?", the overseer remarked.

2

"I still can't believe you have Pepper as doctor now.", the Lone Wanderer told the overseer. She was sitting on the exam table smiling at the other woman.

Amata scoffed. "I remember when you were supposed to follow in your father's footsteps."

The Lone Wanderer broke her gaze. "We were young then."

The Overseer scoffed again. "We're young now."

"Speak for yourself, I'm/"

"Young for in here then?", the Overseer half gestured.

The Lone Wanderer was forced to admit that. Outside the vault, women like her and Reilly and she suspected the General were middle aged if they weren't ghouled enough to irradiate any germs from the inside out and burn through the aging process in one jagged toothed, hair torn, petrified skin swoop. Inside, even Rothschild would still be building the next generation.

The hand on her knee broke her thoughts. "I've missed you, hero."

"She's cleared.", Pepper declared from her adjoined workstation. The two grabbed each other's faces and tried their best to become one until they felt the CLIPBOARD slapping against them. "Out you two. I keep a sterile environment in here."