Preface:
Kayla Ashford. Warrior, shower rockstar, thief. She had a lot of names over the years that she'd given to herself. It had never really mattered, because her sister Nora had always been the star of the show. The tables had turned when Nora had married Nate, and Kayla had finally become something of commodity amongst Nate's friends and fellow soldiers. Kayla had always had the looks in the family, while Nora had the brains. And not for nothing, Kayla had liked the attention she'd gotten, but she'd always moored for the attention of Nate's commanding officer, Roger Maxson. While he had never wanted anything romantic from her, he had frequently and secretly visited her for another reason - for she was the perfect patient zero for a strain of FIV that he was testing and perfecting. Roger Maxson had intended to create a new strain of FIV, to make the perfect super soldier, but had failed repeatedly. And when he finally believed he'd perfected it, Kayla Ashford was the perfect person to give it to. The only tragedy was that he never knew if it had worked, because the very next day, while Kayla was visiting her sister Nora to help her with her new baby Shaun, the bombs fell.
Chapter 1: Vault Shithole (Kayla's POV)
Time seemed to have stopped the moment I had entered the decontamination pod. All I could think about was how cold I was. The frozen glass was fogging up with my breath, but just barely I could make out Nora's form stumbling out of her pod, and then racing across the room to Nate's. I watched as Nora banged desperately on the glass, finally discovering the switch to the side of it. Suddenly Nate's own body tumbled out, slamming onto the floor with a thud. He wasn't moving. From here, I couldn't even see if he was breathing, but he certainly made no effort like he was alive.
I heard an alarm wail somewhere in the room, leaning on the glass for a bit to realize it was Nora herself causing the reverberating noise. She was screaming and sobbing, kneeling down next to Nate. Was he dead? I thought incredulously. It was just so damn cold in here. I started banging on the glass, trying to get Nora's attention, but she didn't seem to hear me. Damn things must be soundproof.
Finally Nora seemed to take solace with whatever condition Nate was in, slipping something from his pocket into her own. Then she started going around from pod to pod, opening and much to her own dismay, none of the other residents were moving either. I didn't quite understand what was going on. I continued to bang on the glass, until finally, Nora's eyes found her way to my pod, and something in her expression changed. Surprise? Relief? She ran over immediately, ripping on the handle to open the door so that I could finally get out.
"Thank god you're alive!" Nora breathed, steadying me as I tried to gain control over my surroundings.
"What the fuck happened? I thought those were just to decontaminate us?" I asked, my eyes wandering over to Nate's still form on the floor.
"You...you don't know, do you? You didn't see any of that?" She quietly breathed out, almost like she was out of breath.
"See what?" I asked, "Is Nate...okay?"
"They... these people came in. They shot him and they stole Shaun! Oh god, Shaun, where did they take him? Why?" Nora cried out.
I felt oddly calm at the knowledge that Nate was indeed deceased. That should've upset me...right? Why did I not seem to feel anything?
"Come on, Nora. Lets try to find a way out." I surmised, grabbing Nora's arm to drag her towards the door they had come in originally.
The two of them moved along, looking for a way out of the vault, until my ears suddenly picked up a disturbing noise. The hair on the back of my neck rose.
"Do you hear that?" I asked.
Nora looked alarmed. "Hear what?"
I shook my head, grabbing a shock baton off the floor. When we rounded the next corner, we discovered the source of the noise. A very, very massive sized cockroach that turned it's ugly head and started directly towards them.
On pure instinct I didn't know I had, I swung the baton violently at it, watching in almost slow motion as the head exploded on impact, flecks of red blood pattering both of our jumpsuits.
"What in the actual fuck was that?" I nearly screamed. But Nora had no idea either. The two girls continued on their way, discovering skeletons of what had to have one been people.
"Wait, there's a terminal here," Nora paused, turning it on and flipping through the entries. "Oh...oh my god, Kayla. You need to read this," Nora breathed, fully engrossed in the terminal entries.
I leaned over her shoulder, feeling my face pale as we read through each entry, things slowly coming into focus. Cryogenics, years passing, mutating animals, the list went on.
"This is like science fucking fiction, Nora, there's no god damn way this is real," I said, trying to calm Nora's ever rising nerves.
"Do you really think this is just bullshit? They killed Nate, they took Shaun.. you were in the pods, too! You felt how cold it was! And that...that bug thing! Oh my god, Kayla, I think this might have actually happened..."
"Fuck whatever asshole wrote all this shit, it's probably lies. We need to get outside and figure out what kind of messed up joke this is." I firmed, and Nora flipped to the bottom entry of the terminal labeled "Open Evacuation Tunnel".
"Well I'll be damned" I muttered, looking over the unmistakenly ruined Sanctuary Hills. Most of the trees were dead, houses falling apart...everything falling apart. Nora squatted, panting, repeating some verse under her breath over and over again.
I watched helplessly as a panic attack overtook her, before finally catching a movement down below near her house. Well, old and rather now ruined house. So much for a white picket fence.
"Nora, look! Doesn't that look like Codsworth?" I asked.
Nora's head snapped up, tracking the tiny movement in the distance, before she stood up and practically bolted down the hill towards it.
"For fucks sake, slow down!" I yelled, but to my surprise, my feet moved much faster than they ever had in the past, and I quickly caught up with her.
"Mum! Aunt Kayla! Oh, good heavens, you've returned!" Codsworth said, floating towards them. "And Master Nate, and little Shaun?" He spun around, trying to see if they were behind them.
"Cods..Codsworth" Nora breathed, "They...They killed him. Those bastards killed him, and they kidnapped Shaun."
"Oh mum. We will find little Shaun. I'll even help you look!" Codsworth beamed at the two of them.
"Are you okay Codsworth?" I interjected. He seemed about as emotionally phased as I was.
"Oh its just...it's been so long since I've been in the company of you gals. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep the floors clean after 200 years? The rust just never comes out!" Codsworth cried out.
"Did you just say 200 years?" I asked, bewildered.
"A little over two-hundred and ten, actually!" He emphasized.
Nora and I stared at each other.
"What...what year is it, exactly?" Nora finally asked.
"Well its 2287, last time I checked. I've been without maintenance for many years mum!"
I wasn't quite sure I wanted to hear anymore. Nora and Codsworth kept speaking, and I took the moment to step away, breathing in the sight of what was once Sanctuary Hills. I wandered to the house across from Nora's, grabbing a few items I deemed necessary: a backpack that was relatively useable, some soap, canned food and water, and a change of clothes. I didn't want to be in this stupid fucking Vault suit anymore. I changed in the bathroom, not that it really seemed to matter anyways, because every wall in the house seemed to have holes in it. As I peeled off my vault suit and pulled on a pair of skinny jeans and a tank top, I froze looking into the dirty mirror.
On both of my wrists, two seemingly permanent black lines had appeared. Did they fucking tattoo us while we were on ice? I made a mental note to ask Nora about it later, and grabbed my backpack before heading out of the house to find Nora and Codsworth again.
Codsworth had made Nora and I some lunch in the time I took to get changed.
And as far as lunch goes, well...it certainly wasn't what I was expecting. Because Codsworth had used a can of 200 year old Cram and just fried it in a pan.
I guess that's how things were going to be from now on. But I had to believe there was a way to make somewhat normal food.
As we ate, Codsworth explained a fair deal about what was no longer called Boston, but the Commonwealth - we talked about something called raiders, super mutants, and synths and he heavily emphasized that we should avoid them as much as possible, and kill them if we couldn't. Codsworth also explained that he didn't know much compared to the rest of the world. Apparently, he had never left Nora's house, and the furthest he had ventured was the edge of the neighborhood.
"Seriously, for 200 years, you didn't think to go explore a little?" I asked incredulously.
"Not so much that I didn't want to," Codsworth tsked, "But my coding does not allow for me to go past a certain distance from my permanent residence."
Noras face fell at hearing that, "Oh buddy, I'm so sorry. I didn't know."
"Don't even bat an eye, mum! You're here now and that's all that matters."
I glanced sideways at Nora, "Yeah, but...we can't stay here Cods. We need to find Shaun."
If a robots face could turn to sad, Codsworth's would have.
"But, we're going to figure out a way so that you can leave too! And we'll come check in on you all the time." Nora said.
And just like that, Codsworth was happy again, puttering around the room and dusting stuff. But it seemed like to me that he wasn't doing much in actual cleaning. I mean, the place had a million holes in the walls that he hadn't bothered to fix in all these years.
Nora and I had decided to both sleep in the living room - for one, her bed had fallen into quite the disrepair state (thanks codsworth), and two, we both wanted to be alert should any dangerous things show up in the night.
It was at least nice that we still had Codsworth though, since he didn't need to sleep. I definitely questioned how much he could really hear though. It's not like he had any fake ears attached to his body.
I rolled over on the couch to face Nora, when a thought came to my mind.
"Hey, did Vault-Tec tattoo you too?" I asked her, raising up my wrists for her to see.
She squinted in the darkness, then held her arm out to feel the lines. She shook her head, pulling her sleeves up for me to see that she still had pale, but tattoo-free wrists.
"Weird as fuck, right?" I joked. It was a bit concerning, but god if I knew how I had gotten them. It's like they'd appeared out of thin air.
I laid my head back, waiting for Nora to fall asleep first. I wasn't particularly tired anyway, and she'd had alot more shit thrown at her than I had. Losing Nate, losing Shaun... that had to be alot to deal with. But for some reason, in the back of my mind, I was confident we would find my nephew again.
And at the same time, I was sure alot of people were going to die because of it.
End of Chapter 1
A/N: So it's always fun when we as readers know something the characters don't, but its even more fun when neither know what's going on. Where'd those tattoos come from? Maybe the injections Roger Maxson had given Kayla weren't for testing flu strains like he'd told her... who knows what he was injecting her with! :)