Personal Log Entry
Lieutenant Veronica Lewis
October 30th
Operation…?
One week. It's been one week since the bombs.
I've organized a watch rotation to help keep the kids busy. Four at a time go upstairs for one hour, then come back down. The next four go up half an hour later, while waiting for Hawke to check on everyone. Two of the civilians happen to be nurses, so he officially has staff to boss around.
The cloud cover has been constant, and the temperature is falling dramatically. We're even feeling it down here.
Seems like one of Tommy's predictions may come true.
To the surprise of nobody, Donnie has volunteered for every rotation. Daniels doesn't let him, for obvious reasons, but that kid is nothing if not persistent.
Simmons has yet to hear anything from the outside world. Even from up above. If anyone hears him, they aren't interested in answering.
Since the 23rd, six more people have joined our shelter. Turned away from the Vault, missed the recall, or arrived too late. Of course, we accepted them. Hawke is hopeful, despite their exposure.
No sign of Emily's husband, though. She's appearing more and more crushed with each passing day.
PiP Boys have officially been handed out. The geiger counters work, thankfully. Here's what I know:
Vault-Tec built these 'Personal Information Processor' gadgets as personal computers. They can tune to local radio stations (not that there's anything to listen to), play holo-tapes, take photos, dictate speech to text logs, even help with weapon coordination. Tsu tried to explain how it all works, but all I really heard was a bunch of techno-babble.
Not that it's her fault. I'm sure my exhaustion hasn't helped. Last night was the first time I've slept more than three hours all week.
Nobody can sleep. Not even our civvies. We're all walking corpses in here.
Personal Log Entry
Lieutenant Veronica Lewis
October 31st
Happy Halloween.
Lynch, Stowe, and Zakovsky put together a small Halloween event for the kids. Though it was more like Easter, at least from my understanding. They've been collecting the candy that's added to our MRE kits and they spent the early morning hiding it all around the basement. The kids had a good time, and the parents were grateful for the distraction.
I wonder if there are other groups of survivors doing something similar.
I wonder if there are other survivors at all.
It seems like every moment of downtime I get, my head starts to wander to thoughts like that. If this exchange was global, there would have to be survivors somewhere. Simmons' radio, these PiP Boys, O'Malley's laser rifle, and this terminal mean that there are functioning electronics out there. Why is nobody answering?
November 2nd
It's been raining for three days now.
It started in the afternoon on Sunday, and hasn't stopped. Which would be normal for DC, since it's a swamp, but it's November.
And this is not normal rain.
Danny was the first to see it, during his rotation up above. The water is black. But I'm surprised it isn't glowing green.
According to a test Hawke did, thanks to samples Greggor collected, each drop of this stuff is giving off almost as much radiation as Chernobyl. The running hypothesis around the lab is that the rain picked up contaminants from the bombings. Carbon, pulverized debris, irradiated dust.
Quite literal fallout.
We should be safe down here. Unless the basement floods. Simmons spent the night looking for cracks in the walls.
November 5th
Greggor is getting bad. Severe radiation poisoning.
MOPP gear doesn't protect us from rain, I guess.
Hawke says that Kyle received three lifetime doses in the span of a few seconds, and Rad-X and RadAway aren't helping. The needle on his geiger counter hasn't moved from 1000, and his PiP Boy keeps crashing.
A few of the civilians aren't feeling well either. We're going to place counters around the basement to look for leaks.
November 9th
Kyle died this morning.
The first death under my command since Fairbanks. DeMartino, Boyle, Franks, Recendiz, Yang. Now Greggor.
We'll dig a proper grave once the rain stops. Shame we aren't closer to Arlington.
What's Maitland going to think?
November 12th
Greggor was buried today.
I'm sure he won't be the last.
Baker led a group around the neighborhood to search for survivors, and scavenge for anything we can use. The animosity between us and the civvies seems to be going away. They seem to realize that we're their only hope for survival.
Not that any of us has a clue what we're doing.
In the meantime, Baker, Ricci, Zack and Lynch found foodstuffs and medicine in a few of the surrounding houses.
No water, but we'll make do with what we have.
As well as Nuka-Cola and Vim. No shortage of those.
Rationing will only buy us so much time. We'll have to send search parties out soon. The next big move would be to head for Constantine, or Independence, which would be daunting on foot.
At least the fires downtown are going out.
November 14th
I've been thinking a bit about the New Testament lately. Though plenty of things in both Books are open to interpretation, Revelation is pretty cut and dried.
I mean, 'The Former World Has Passed Away'? It's happened. We are in that New Earth, now.
My Book doesn't offer much in the way of hope and positivity. The Old Testament God is a bit of a prick, for lack of a better term. I've had to borrow Ash's King James version.
If Dad could see me now, looking to a Catholic for help.
Emily saw me flipping through it yesterday, and asked for some form of guidance for a broken hearted widow. She asked for it to be from mine, so I did my best.
I don't know if Isaiah 11:9 was what she was looking for, but she seemed to look less grief-stricken after I read a bit.
I wish Father Cromwell was here. He was always good at Bible readings.
November 16th
I've noticed something amongst the Company. Nobody calls each other by rank anymore, and most go by first names. Even the lowest level kids like Greene and Tsu. I heard her call Baker 'Jimmy' yesterday. Ranks and titles are gone. Even with me, in some cases.
What does that make us? Just a bunch of guys and girls with uniforms and guns claiming to be soldiers? Does the US Army even exist anymore?
Does America?
November 17th
Our first snowfall of the season. The temperature has been below freezing for the last few weeks, and continuing to fall. I can hear the building shifting and the wind howling through the windows up above. According to the last few watch parties, the weather has been a bit crazy. Gale winds, monsoon-style storms, hail the size of baseballs.
I can tell that Simmons and Tsu are starting to crack, too. Hawke has the distraction of keeping us all healthy and doling out rations, and everyone else goes on watch and patrols. The kids volunteered to fix and replace mask filters, filling them with charcoal. Some men in the group added themselves to the watch shifts.
Not perfect, but nothing is anymore.
Tommy and Gabby have to sit here day in and day out, listening to static and toying around with PiP Boys. If I get the greenlight to leave The Crypt, as Tommy has taken to calling it, I'll bring them with me.
We have books and board games to keep ourselves sane, but most are far too stressed out or depressed to focus long enough to finish one. Who cares about checkers, Blast Radius, or the latest novel by Timothy Cain? The world is over.
November 20th
A breakthrough! Sort of.
Simmons heard some back and forth on his radio this morning. The chatter and communication techniques point to the local PD, so it seems they're still around.
They didn't reply to our calls, but Tommy is over the moon.
So am I, come to think of it. We're not alone anymore.
Another silver lining: Emily's baby is seven months old today. He seems to have gotten over the whole global armageddon thing, and only cares about being fed and entertained. From what I know, that's all babies should be worried about.
Reminds me of a certain group of idiots I'm in charge of.
November 24th
Thanksgiving in a Post Apocalypse. Check that off my BINGO card.
Martinez was able to cobble together a proper meal for everyone. If she wasn't such a good NCO, I'd make her Company Cook.
Little more than Cram, Mac and Cheese, and crushed potato crisps mixed with water and coffee creamer. Top it off with a few cases of beer that Ricci found, and Ash made it taste like an honest to God Thanksgiving feast. All we were missing was football.
For dessert, we shared the last box of snack cakes. We'll need more soon.