Fallout: Rise of the Lone Wanderer: Book One
Page 6
"Impossible!" he whispered. This confirmed his worst fears that something terrible had happened down here; and Marcus was going to find out what.
They walked through the entrance and the smell of death hit their nostrals. It was apparent to Marcus that the Vault's reactor (which Vault-Tec boasted would last for a thousand years) was running on emergency power only. Lying at the foot of the door controls were two skeletons, each one wearing a broken riot helmet and clutching a 10mm pistol. Marcus kneeled down and collected the few precious rounds still in the guns.
"Are they...from Arefu?" Lucy asked.
Marcus shook his head. "No. These skeletons are very old." He looked around the room and saw signs of battle: bullet holes and blood covered the walls. "They must've been trying to keep people from escaping."
Lucy looked back at the openned cog. "I don't think they did a very good job."
They continued to decend deeper into the Vault and entered the lab. The place was a total reck. Computer terminals and equipment of all kinds were smashed and thrown about. There were two skeletons in the room; one on a gurnie and the other on the floor. Marcus studied the one on the gurnie, and although he wasn't a medical examiner, it was clear that this person had been struck by a large number of bullets. After raiding the medicine cabinet (he found only a couple if stimpaks and rad-x), he found a holotape under a desk. Marcus pluged it into his PIPBOY and listened. A man claiming to be a doctor reported that one of the vault residents, who had no prior history of mental illness, went wild and began attacking people. The doctor claimed that it took over fifteen shots before the security guards could finally take him down.
"Did anyone in your Vault ever go that crazy?" Lucy asked.
Marcus removed the holotape. "Not that I'm aware of. Let's keep moving."
They were heading for the Vault's living quarters now. They found more skeletons and more signs of a horrific battle. Scribled all over the wall was a single phrase: "Let the blue in." They made contact with their first living Vault resident in one of the male dorms. A young woman was crouched down in the middle if the room, her back to Marcus and Lucy. From the sounds it was clear that she was savagely eating something. Marcus looked at Lucy and put his finger to his mouth, then quietly removed his knife. He slowly approached, and when he was standing over her, it was then that Marcus saw what she was eating: a human leg!
A sound must have escaped Marcus as he gaged, because the woman turned around and looked right at him. Her eyes resembled that of a crazed animal, and blood was smeared all over the lower part of her face. She hissed at Marcus and exposed her blood stained teeth. Marcus drove his knife into the side if her neck, killing her before she could let out a scream. He stood over the body trembling as he clutched the now blood stained knife. Never had he been so terrified.
Even disarming the bomb in Megaton was not as terrifying as this moment.
Lucy walked up behind him and had to hold in a scream when she saw the half eaten human leg. "Oh my God! They brought them here to..."
Marcus turned to leave-and suddenly the room changed. It went from being dirty and in shambles, to clean and pristine. A strange blue haze encompassed everything, and standing in the doorway, wearing a Vault 101 suit, was the love of his life.
"Amata!" Marcus took a step forward and squinted at the sudden pain that hit his forehead. When he openned his eyes, Amata and the blue haze were gone, and the room had returned to it's original state.
Lucy grabed his shoulder. "Marcus! Are you alright?"
Marcus rubbed his brow and tried to shake his head clear. The sudden headach was subsiding, and he looked over at Lucy; who had a concerned look on her face.
"I'm fine. I...thought I saw-something."
Lucy wasn't buying it. "You called out for Amata."
Marcus decided to change the subject. "We have to move before others show up."
He quickly left the room. Lucy looked back at the dead crazed woman and started to leave. She stopped for a moment and placed her hand on her forehead, as a dull headach began. Brushing it aside, she raised her shotgun and followed Marcus.
* * *
They left the male dormatory and had entered the female living quarters, which was in the same state as the rest of the Vault. They were halfway down the corridor when a door to Marcus' right slid open, and a crazed man swung at him with a fire axe. Marcus jumped back, avoiding the fatal blow, and fired two 12 guage rounds into the man's chest. From up ahead, five more savages, wielding melee weapons of all kinds, came running from around the corner straight at them.
Marcus and Lucy raised their weapons and openned fire. It took three rounds from Marcus' combat shotgun to take the first man down. The savage Lucy was aiming for only went down when she gave him both barrels. The others didn't slow down at all and were almost upon them. Marcus fired three more rounds, killing another.
Lucy was still loading her sawed-off when a female savage pinned her against the wall. The last savage, a male, tackled Marcus to the ground. The man had the same crazed look in his eyes as the woman Marcus had killed earlier, and it took all of Marcus' strength to keep the savage from bitting his throat. Marcus reached down, pulled out his 10mm pistol, and fired eight rounds into his attacker's stomach before he finally died.
Lucy too, was trying desperatly to keep the woman's teeth away from her face. With her right hand Lucy pulled out her combat knife and continuously stabbed the savage in the back and in her side. It wasn't until she stabbed her in the neck that the savage crumpled to the ground. Two more savages came running around the corner, growling and snarling. Marcus sat up and activated his VATS. Aiming for their heads, he fired two rounds, killing them both. When it was clear that on one else was coming, Marcus stood up and ran over to Lucy. "Are you alright?"
Lucy was shaking and trying to catch her breath. "Yeah. What the FUCK is wrong with these people?"
Marcus looked at the bodies and shook his head. "I don't know."
Lucy bent down to pick up her sawed-off shotgun when the headach returned; only this time the hallway was covered in a blue haze. She looked over at the body of the female savaged she had stabbed to death-and it was reaching for her! Lucy screamed and blasted the woman's head off with two shots at point blank range. Marcus grabbed the gun and pulled it away from her. "What are you doing? She's dead!"
Lucy blinked and the blue haze was gone. She stared at the headless body of the woman, then back to Marcus. "I...I thought she..."
Marcus released her weapon. As he looked up, the same blue haze returned, the bodies were no longer in the hall, and his father was standing at the other end of it. "Dad!" Marcus ran down the corridor towards him, but just as he reached him, the man disappeared along with the blue haze. Marcus placed his hand on his head. The headaches were getting worse. Lucy was right behind him. "What is happening? First you called out for your old girlfriend, and now you're running after your father?"
Marcus shook the cobwebs away. "I don't know. I've been...seeing things and having these headaches." Lucy turned around and looked back at the dead woman she decapitated. "I...does everything turn blue when it happens?"
Marcus thought for a moment. "Yes. That saying on the walls: 'let the blue in'."
They both stared at each other, and while no one said anything, it was clear they feared the samething: sharing the fate of the Vault residents. Marcus quickly reloaded his weapons. "We have to get to the Overseer's office. We have to find out what happened down here."
Lucy didn't want to waste anymore time looking for her parents, but she also didn't want to end up a crazed cannibal. "Okay."
* * *
They made it to the office without incident. Luckly the Overseer's terminal still had power, and Marcus hacked into it with his PIPBOY. It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for.
"Son of a bitch!"
"What is it?" Lucy asked.
"Vault-Tec and the government used the Vault to conduct an experiment in mind control."
"Yeah. They wanted to make a perfect soldier; one that would follow orders to the letter. Even if it meant certain death."
Lucy couldn't believe what she was hearing. "And the people had no idea?"
Marcus shook his head. "Not according to this. Whatever they were using was pumped into the Vault's ventilation system. Only something went terribly wrong."
A bitter chuckle escaped from Lucy. "Ya think?"
Marcus sat back in the chair and sighed. "They used these people as gunie pigs. They told them they would be safe from the bombs, and these bastards used them!"
Marcus' shock was giving way to rage. How many other Vaults were used for experiments like this? Was HIS Vault being used even now? These were questions Marcus would find the answers to, but not now. They needed to find Lucy's parents fast and get out of here. Lucy interupted his train of thought. "I don't understand how these people survived down here like this."
Marcus shook his head. "I don't think these people are the original Vault dwellers. Rather, they're wastelanders who found the Vault open and decided to move in."
Lucy was puzzled. "But they're wearing the jumpsuits."
"Yes, but none of them are wearing PIPBOYs. The only ones I've seen are on the skeletons. A PIPBOY 2000 is password protected, so these people couldn't use them.
They put on the jumpsuits, made themselves at home..."
"And slowly went crazy."
Marcus nodded. "Yes. We just have to keep it together long enough in this fucking house of horrors to find your parents."
* * *
They continued their search deeper into the Vault. Eventually they made it to the caffateria and forced themselves to look inside. It was as they dreaded: half-eaten body parts and blood were everywhere; some of them served up on plates. Marcus openned the refrigerator and found slabs of meat. Lucy was beginning to think that they were too late, but she had to keep looking.
Leaving the caffateria the pair make their way down to the atrium. Despite every attrocity they had seen, it didn't prepare them for this.
"Jesus Christ!" Marcus gasped.
The atrium had been turned into a slaughterhouse. Human bodies, many of them incomplete, were hanging upside down from meat hooks. The Vault residents had disembowled them and left thier carcusses to drain. "Do you remember when I told you these were not animals?" Marcus asked. "I was wrong."
Lucy couldn't hold back anymore and threw up. Marcus fought the urge to do the something; more for Lucy's sake. He felt the need to be stronge for her.
When she had finished, Lucy forced herself to look at their faces. About halfway through, she stopped dead in her tracks and began to shake.
"Lucy, what is it?"
She was staring at the bodies of a middle aged couple. The woman had long blonde hair, and Marcus knew that Lucy had found her parents.
"Oh Lucy," Marcus sighed, "I'm so sorry."
She dropped down to her knees. She didn't even care that she was knelling in human blood and bile. Lucy began to sob and Marcus placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Lucy, we can't stay here anymore."
She pulled away from him and began to scream. Marcus tried to calm her down, but the damage had been done. Up on the catwalk four of the savage Vault dwellers appeared; growling and snarling at them. That was it. Marcus grabbed the hysterical Lucy and began to drag her out of the atrium. "Come on, Lucy!" he screamed, "We have to go now!"
The four savages leaped down from the catwalk. Marcus threw Lucy through the doorway and removed two of the frag grenades he had found in Arefu. Although he had never used one, Marcus had seen enough movies to know how the grenades worked. As the savages charged, Marcus pulled the pins and threw them at the savages. "Yeah, fuck you too!" He entered the hallway and the atrium door shut behind him. The explosion shook the corridore he and Lucy were in, but no one in the slaughter house survived. Lucy was still crying, but she was beginning to calm down. Marcus approached her. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"
Lucy wiped her eyes. "No. Thank you."
"Lucy, there's nothing more we can do here. We should leave."
"No." she growled. "We need to kill them. ALL of them!"
The look on Lucy's face sent a chill up his spine, but Marcus could hardly blame her. Though these people were victums of Vault-Tec's experiments, they needed to die. More importantly, they had to prevent others from wandering in here and turning into these savages. "Alright. There is one way to do it quickly, and it will seal this Vault forever. We have to cause the reactor to melt down."
"Do you know how to do that?"
Marcus began heading down the hallway. "I think so. If I can hack into the system and shutdown the reactor's cooling system, it will over heat and blow." He looked down at his PIPBOY. "I just hope I'll be able to override the safety proticals."
Though Lucy didn't understand everything he said, she still liked the plan. "Where is the reactor?"
"One level down."
* * *
It took only a few minutes to reach the reactor room. Again there were signs of an intense battle. A few skeletons littered the hallway outside the room, and inside were more skeletons behind sandbags and barricades. Marcus looted two clips of 10mm ammo and three more frag grenades from the ammo boxes he'd discovered. He approached the reactor controls and plugged in his PIPBOY. It was clear that the reactor had sustained damage from small arms fire, which explained why it was only running at emergency output. Still, it would be more than enough to bury this place. "Okay, I'm in." He said. "Let's see. Override safety proticals...there." He looked over at Lucy. "Now once I do this, it can't be undone, and we will have to run like hell."
Lucy's blue eyes met his, and the intensity in them was incredible. "Do it!"
Marcus nodded. "Here we go."
He punched in the command, and the reactor's cooling system shut down. An ear-splitting alarm sounded throughout the Vault, followed by an auto-mated announcement:
"Attention, please. Reactor melt down in progress. You now have T-minus five minutes to evacuate."
Marcus unplugged his PIPBOY. "That's it, let's go!"
They grabbed thier gear and ran back through the doomed Vault. The alarm system wailed the entire time, and the evacuation anouncement repeated itself every thirty seconds. They had reached the caffeteria at T-minus three minutes when they spotted a large group of savages advancing from the other end. Marcus shoved Lucy to the other side of the corridore. "Take cover!"
They openned fire with their shotguns and dropped the first three, but the others kept coming. "COME ON!" Lucy screamed as she tossed a grenade, killing four more. Marcus could see more through the smoke, and targeted them with his VATS. He fired until his combat shot gun was empty, and tossed another grenade down the hall.
Body parts flew everywhere, and Marcus slapped his last ammo drum into his shotgun.
"Attention, please. You now have T-minus two minutes to evacuate."
Marcus knew they were running out of time. He yelled at Lucy. "We have to push through them!"
Lucy reloaded her sawed-off, and removed her last grenade from her belt. "You ready?"
Marcus fired two more rounds, killing two more savages. "Now!"
Lucy pulled the pin and threw the grenade. Another explosion, and more body parts went flying everywhere.
"Go!" Marcus yelled as he charged down the corridore, with Lucy right behind him. After nearly slipping on something that Marcus didn't want to think about, they made it through the caffeteria and into the living quarters. Two more savages came charging from up ahead, and Marcus put them both down without skipping a step. They were running past the lab when a savage jumped out behind Marcus with a sword, determined to bring the blade down on his head. But in his bloodlust, the savage did not see Lucy, who blew his head off with her shotgun. Marcus turned and saw the body, then looked back at Lucy. "Thanks."
"Attention, please. You now have T-minus one minu
te to evacuate."
"Come on, move!" Lucy yelled as she was began pushing Marcus down the hall.
The door to the Vault enterance was just up ahead. Marcus readied his last grenade and had Lucy run ahead of him. He looked over his shoulder, and saw another horde of savages running after them. "GOOOOO!" he screamed.
They made it through the doorway and Marcus hit the door switch and tossed the grenade under it before it shut. He smashed the controls just as the grenade went off.
"Attention, please. You now have T-minus thirty seconds to evacuate. Twenty-nine, twenty-eight..."
Marcus grabbed Lucy's hand. "Come on!"
They ran through the open cog into the cave, then through the wooden door and out into wasteland. They continued to sprint until they finally reached the ditch they were in the day before.
The reactor's explosion shook the entire mountain. A large cload of dust shot out of the cave, obliterating the wooden door, and Marucs knew that it had caved in.
They had done it. Vault 106 was sealed forever.
Marcus layed down on his back to catch his breath. "We did it. We did it."
Suddenly, Lucy was on top of him, and before he could react, her lips met his. Although surprised, Marcus didn't stop her. After a few moments, she lifter her head and stared into his brown eyes. "Thank you." she whispered.
Marcus smiled and put his arm around her. "Your welcome."
This time the kiss was mutual.
* * *
It was just after midnight, and the two young travelers were walking side by side towards the east. "So how long will it take us to get to Galaxy New Radio?" Marcus asked.
Lucy thought for a moment. "About two days, but it's not the distance that's the problem. It's what's between us and GNR that's a problem."
"Like what?"
"Oh, super mutants, feral ghouls, raiders...the usual."
Marcus grinned. "We just wiped out an entire settlement of crazed cannibals. I think we can handle anything at this point."