Hello friends and lovelies! This is BlueWastelander and welcome to the first story I've written in a long while (I think it's been close to 7 years since I last shared). I have been playing a lot of Fallout recently and naturally that makes me want to write something. I hope you all enjoy this story. Please feel free to leave some feedback (just don't be a total jerk about it).
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from the Fallout franchise and am just borrowing them to create stories.
Prologue: War Never Changes
Adam Herzog wiped the fogged bathroom mirror with his hand after stepping out of the shower. He smiled when he saw himself, ran his hand through his damp black hair, and laughed before complimenting himself, "Hello handsome."
He leaned in and looked at the stubble on his face before he reached for his razor. A knock at the door startled him, and he called out to his robot butler, Mr. Handy, "Hey Mack, can you get the door for me?"
"Of course, sir," the robot said from somewhere down the hallway. There was some quiet talking before Mack informed him, "Your mother is here, sir."
Adam sighed and used a hand towel to wipe the leftover shave cream off his face, "Hi Mom! I'm getting ready, I'll be in the living room in a minute."
He wrapped a towel around his waist and darted across the hallway to his bedroom. He slipped into a pair of khaki slacks and a white undershirt. He sat down and put on a pair of white socks and his father's wristwatch. He straightened the frames that held his father's service photo and his own on top of his dresser before leaving his bedroom.
"Adam," his mother said as soon as his door opened. "Adam, it's not too late to stop this whole mess."
Adam groaned inwardly, frustrated by his mother's incessant demands. Their relationship has been on thin ice the past few weeks as wedding preparations were wrapping up in preparation for today. Now, his mother had crossed the final line. He put his arm around his mother's shoulders and guided her to the sofa that faced the television set.
"Mom, we have had this conversation before," he chided. " You've gone too far coming here today instead of meeting me at the church like we talked about. I love Minnie. I am going to Concord today, and I am going to get married to her. If you can't be supportive, you're not going to be there."
His mother's jaw clenched before she spat out, "How could you choose that harlot over me?"
"This is what I mean. You're not coming with me to the church if you're going to behave this way. I will lock you out of my house and leave you behind."
"Adam!" His mother whined, but she was interrupted when they noticed the show that had been on in the background had changed.
A visibly distressed local news anchorman spoke slowly with a look of shock on his face, "Followed by... yes, followed by flashes. Blinding flashes. Sounds of explosions... We're... we're trying to get confirmation..."
While the anchorman talked in a stupor, emergency sirens screamed outside. Adam stumbled around the couch and yanked the front door open. His neighbors all around Sanctuary Hills exited their houses. They stumbled and moseyed about as they sized up how what had just been announced had changed their day.
"Adam?" His mother asked shakily as she walked out behind him and looked around hesitantly.
The sirens continued to sound as military vehicles drove across the bridge from Concord up towards a small path that led to the new vault that was just outside of Sanctuary Hills.
"Mom…" Adam turned back to look at her. "Minnie. We need to get her and go to the vault!"
"All of us? Adam, are you crazy? We don't even know how much time we have to get there. We are being actively bombed!" The panic in his mother's shrill screams echoed in his ears. "We can't go to Concord and back! She's probably headed here now anyway after hearing the news."
He watched his mother shake herself. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "Let's head to the vault, Adam. We can wait for Minnie there."
Adam swallowed and looked towards Concord. Minnie would come over the bridge at any moment. He could distract his mother for a few minutes while they gathered things.
"You put me on your vault registration, right Adam?" his mother asked as she followed him back into the house.
"Yes," he said and grabbed his coat from the rack behind the door. "You were the first person I put on the registration before I got engaged to Minnie. You're still on it."
His mother smiled, "Well, that's just swell. Let's head there. Is there anything we need to take?"
He mutely shook his head. She put her hand in the crook of his arm and pulled him out of the house in the direction the military trucks had driven. Adam took one last look at the bridge and allowed himself to be guided by his mother up the sidewalk toward the vault.
Minnie will know where to go, he reassured himself. We've gone over emergency evacuation plans before.
He and his mother made it to the gate that kept most of the neighborhood away from the vault. Women and men were screamed hysterically as they tried to push past the military police. Adam scoffed inwardly at the Vault-Tec representative who yelled and tried to intimidate the men into letting him through the checkpoint. A soldier in power armor quelled their complaints when he revved his minigun.
Adam and his mother let a man with his wife and baby check in at the gate before them.
"There's another person on my registration," Adam said to the man checking the registration list at the gate. "Will she be allowed in even though I'm not with her?"
The soldier nodded, "As long as her name is on the list and she has proper ID, she'll be let in."
"Perfect," Adam's mother said shakily. "Let's go in and wait for her in the vault."
Adam swallowed but walked forward. He numbly followed the directions of men waving him and his mother toward the vault. He knew his mother was scared, and even though he was cross with her, she was his only family left and he wanted her to be safe too. He formulated a plan in his head as they walked up towards the platform that would take them deep into the ground where the vault waited. He would take her in, help her get settled, and then head out of the vault to wait for Minnie.
"Don't worry too much," his mother said when she noticed him preoccupied with checking the faces of the people who followed them from the base of the hill.
Adam took a breath as the platform beneath their feet began slowly descended. He tried to take another deep breath and urged himself to calm down.
We can get through this, he thought as he squeezed his mother's hand, looking at her with what he hoped was an optimistic smile. She smiled back at him weakly before a wall of heat pushed them backward on the platform and the sound of an explosion rang in his ears.
Adam knew not to look towards the light that surrounded them briefly before the platform sank beneath the blast doors. The scrape and slam of the doors above the platform echoed as they closed, and the group of new vault dwellers was plunged into darkness.
Hello again! I hope you enjoyed the prologue to my new Fallout 4-based story! It was fun to write as I considered how the main story would be different If the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 wasn't Nate or Nora. I hope you'll continue reading this story as it updates. You can expect updates on Wednesday OR Friday depending on my schedule.Until later friends and lovelies!