Fallout: Rise of the Lone Wanderer: Book One

by M. P. Pubs

  "Hey wait!" He yelled as he ran through the doorway, and entered a hall that was lighted just like the room he left. He rounded a corner, and spotted a little girl running down another hallway. "Please, wait!" He picked up the pace and sprinted down the hall, rounding another corner. As fast as he was running, it seemed that the little girl was getting further and further away. He rounded another corner, and saw the girl go through a door at the far end of the hall. Marcus was panting and sweating when he finally reached the door and opened it. What he saw next nearly knocked him on the floor: a quint suburban caldisack, with houses, trees, and a small playground in the center of it. The sky was blue, the sun was shinning, and there were people, (not wastelanders, or raiders, or ghouls), but people,walking around without a care in the world. In front of one of the houses, a little boy was setting up a lemonade stand. In front of another home were two woman siting on the front porch drinking coffee. And in the playground was a little girl playing on a swing, with a dog standing nearby.

  Marcus ran across the street and approached the little girl, who jumped off the swing and greeted him with a smile. "Hi there! My name is Betty, what's your name?"

  Marcus was still so overwhelmed by everything that he could barely speak. "I'm...M-Marcus. Marcus Lincoln."

  Betty beamed with surprise. "Cool, just like the President! Oh we are going to have soooo much fun."

  "Um...Betty, is it? What is this place? Is this...heaven?"

  Betty responded with laughter. "You're funny! No silly, this is Tranquility Lane. You're inside Vault 112."

  That was the last thing Marcus expected to hear. "The Vault? But...Talon Company attacked before I could get into the simulator."

  Betty shook her head. "That's what you were made to believe." She took Marcus' hand. "Here, let me show you." She began to lead Marcus out of the playground when the dog began barking. Betty stopped and stared at the animal. "DOWN, boy!"

  The dog wined and laid down. Betty looked up at Marcus and smiled. "Come on, this way." She walked Marcus over to what looked like an abandoned house on the opposite side of the street. Inside, the home was in disarray, and it looked as though it had not been lived in for quite some time. Betty approached the wall to the right of the living room, waved her right hand, and the wall was replaced by an image of the Vault 112 stasis room. Marcus could see Charon, alive and well, sitting next to an occupied stasis pod.

  "See," Betty said, "you're in the pod, safe and sound."

  Marcus took a closer look, and indeed he was lying in the pod with the visor over his face. "But...Talon Company...they..."

  "The first thing the simulator does is a complete scan of your mind," the little girl said. ", then once all of your memories are downloaded, the simulator can use them to create any reality it wants."

  Marcus stared at the scene of the Vault once again. He was grateful that both he and Charon were still alive, but the attack had been so real..."Why would the computer do such a thing?" He asked.

  The little girl shrugged her shoulders. "Because it was fun."

  Marcus' head jerked back in her direction. "Because it was fun!"

  Betty waved her hand, and the image was replaced by the blank wall. "I'm bored; it's time for us to play a game."

  Marcus was losing his patients. Normally he would never smack a little girl, but after what he had been through, he was considering making an exception. "Listen kid, I don't have time for games, okay! I came here to find my father, have you seen him?"

  Betty's face suddenly went from very happy and cheerful, to very angry. "I said I wanted to play a game NOW!"

  Marcus immediately noticed that Betty's voice had suddenly changed from a little girl's, to a deep, male voice with an accent. He stared at the virtual girl for a moment, and he wondered if it wasn't some kind of glitch in the computer system. Having lost all patience, he turned and headed for the door. "I told you, I'm not here to play any fucking..."

  "NOOOOO!" Betty's shriek was so loud that Marcus fell to his knees and placed both hands over his ears. The scream lasted for what seemed like an eternity, and he was certain his ear drums were about to burst. A sudden jolt of electricity shot through him, and Marcus was knocked unconscious.

  * * *

  When Marcus woke up, he found himself lying in the playground where he'd first met Betty. Every muscle in his body ached, and he struggled to stand up. It wasn't long before a deep, heavily accented voice from behind him got his attention.

  "Good, you're awake."

  Marcus turned and Betty, (which he now realized was anything but a little girl) was playing on the swing set. Marcus noticed the dog from earlier lying down and watching him with pitiful eyes. He slowly approached the...creature, for lack of a better term. "Who are you?"

  Betty smiled and jumped off the swing. "I thought a smart boy like you would've figured it out. I am Professor Stanislaus Braun, and this is my world."

  Marcus was speechless. Just when he thought this day couldn't get any weirder..."But...you can't be. You're a..."

  Braun smiled amusingly. "This is but one of many forms I have taken over the centuries. I have complete control over the virtual world you see before you. I can turn myself, and anyone who resides here, into anything or anyone. I can also change the enviroment with the snap of my finger." The professor approached Marcus and looked up at him. "So you could say, that here, I am God!"

  Marcus stared down at the mad professor, and the combination of the sweet, innocent appearance, combined with the deep, evil voice, creeped him out more then anything he had ever encountered. "You've lost your fucking mind!"

  Braun responded with a child-like giggle. "No, Mr. Lincoln, I am a realist! The original intent of the Vault was to awaken the residence once the radiation had returned to safe levels, but then I thought: why do that when I can control my own world right here? A world free from the horrors of the reality outside the Vault. So I installed a fail-safe program which gave me complete control of the system."

  Marcus looked around in horror. "How can you justify keeping all of these people trapped like this?"

  Braun pointed at the Vault residence, going about their day without a care in the world. "Look at them; they have no idea what is happening. As far as these simpletons are concerned, they have lived their entire lives here on this tiny caldisack. They have no idea that we spent the first fifty years on the island of Tahiti, or the next one-hundred in the Italian Alps. Though I must admit, after a few decades boredum began to set in. Then one day, just on impulse, I caused Mr. Rockwell over there to fall while skiing and become impaled on a jagged rock. I found the sight of his blood on the snow to be...stimulating. So I began to find more amusing ways to kill the residents, and I have found it to be very...theropudic."

  As Marcus listened to the professors rantings, he began to feel sick to his stomach. This was far worst then he thought. Braun, who his father had described as a brilliant scientist, had turned the Vault into his own virtual hell; with him as the devil. "I was wrong about you, professor. You haven't lost your mind. You're bat-shit fucking crazy!"

  Braun's expression became dark. "You are the one who wants to sentence these people to a life in an irradiated wasteland! No, my dear boy, I am not the crazy one here."

  Marcus sighed; he was getting no where. "Please, I just want to find my father. Where is he?"

  Braun smiled. "He's been right here the whole time; you were just too blind to see it." He looked over at the dog, who began to pant and wage his tail.

  Marcus stared into the dog's eyes. I couldn't be. "D-dad?"

  The dog responded with a bark.

  Rage filled Marcus to his core and he raised his fist, determined to crush Braun's skull and end his reign of terror. "You sonofa..."

  Marcus was knocked off his feet and was slammed into a steel cage that appeared in the center of the playground. The dog, his father, began to bark and growl, but an electrical charged bolt from Braun quickly silenced him. Marcus got up on his knees and bega
n pulling on the bars with all his might, but it was no use. "LET ME OUT OF HERE YOU CRAZY BASTARD!"

  Braun closed the distance to the cage in the blink of an eye, reached through the bars and grabbed Marcus throat. Whatever fight was still in him vanished as the Wanderer struggled for air. Braun's grip was terrifyingly powerful, and it was a reminder to Marcus that this was not a little girl he was dealing with.

  "I am the one who makes demands here, boy! If you do not do exactly what I say, I will turn you and your father into the primordial slim from which you evolved from."

  Marcus was just beginning to turn blue when Braun removed his grip on his throat.

  "You see, unlike these other fools, you and your father remember all of the 'games' that we play. The fail safe wipes their memories clean after each death, but you...you and your father are much more entertaining. We are going to have soooo much fun!"

  Marcus was still struggling to catch his breath. He stared up at the evil child, and a grin appeared on her face. "And now, it's time to play..."

  * * *

  Marcus sat on the floor of the abandoned house, with his father (still in the form of a dog), lying next to him. He wasn't sure how much time had passed since he'd become trapped inside Professor Braun's personal hell. Days, weeks...there was no way to tell. Maybe what seemed like days in the simulator was actually years to the outside world. Another century could've passed, and neither he nor his father would know it. Marcus looked over at his father. "Now I know how Odysseus felt."

  The dog barked and began to wage his tail, no doubt happy at the reference to Jame's favorite story from Greek mythology: "The Odyssey". When he was a child, Marcus found the book to be extremely boring, but now he was grateful that his father had made him read it. After what he had gone through the last couple of months, Marcus had a new appreciation for Homer's tale. He reached over and rubbed the dog's head. "I don't think a Trojan horse is going to get us out of this one, Dad."

  The dog lowered his head and wined.

  "That is if you even are my dad. For all I know this is just another one of Braun's mind tricks. He's probably watching us right now, laughing his ass off."

  The dog wined and began to lick his face. For a moment, Marcus smiled. "I guess I should blame you for getting me into this."

  The dog's ears went up.

  "I know: you told me to stay in the Vault and I didn't listen. So...I guess it's not all you're fault."

  The dog replied with a bark.

  The sound of the front door opening made Marcus' heart feel heavy. "Here we go again." he mumbled. Since coming to Tranquility Lane, Braun had forced Marcus to perform all matter of heinous acts on the unsuspecting Vault residents. The first thing he had to do was make a little boy named Timmy Neusbaum to cry. Marcus accomplished this by turning over the boys lemonade stand. The next task, breaking up the Rockwell's marriage, took a little more imagination. First he told Mrs. Rockwell that her husband was having an affair, but she of course didn't believe him. Marcus changed that by planting lingerie he stole from the neighbor, Martha Simpson. The last 'game' Braun made him play was he had to kill Mabel Henderson, but he had to make it look like and accident. A skateboard left at the top of the stairs in her home was enough to amuse the professor. Braun was very pleased (one could say, as giddy as a school girl), with Marcus' performance; and the Lone Wanderer was disgusted with himself because of it.

  Braun, still in the form of the little girl known as Betty, entered the house and skipped over to Marcus with a big smile on her face. "Hello there! Are you ready to play another game?"

  Marcus sighed and did not move. "Yeah." he mumbled.

  Braun put his hands on his hips and leaned forward. "I can't hear you."

  Marcus looked up at the evil child. "Yes!"

  Betty smiled. "Good!" She held out her hand. "Now come on, we have lots to do today."

  Marcus reluctantly stood up, but he refused to take her hand. They began to walk towards the door when Braun abruptly stopped in his tracks and tensed up. A moment later, Marcus saw the virtual girl flicker for just a second.

  Braun gritted his teeth. "We have un-invited guest!" He pushed Marcus aside with one hand, approached the living room wall, and waved his hand. As before, an image of the Vault 112 stasis room appeared, and he could see Charon, Dr Madison Li, and several other people huddled around the main computer's console. For the first time in days, hope filled Marcus' soul, and a smile appeared on his face. The dog, after getting a glimpse of Dr. Li and her team, began barking and waging his tail.

  Braun stared daggers at both of them. "I take it these are friends of yours. No matter." He turned back to the image on the wall. "I have designed this computer's defenses myself." He raised both hands, and a brick wall suddenly appeared, blocking the image of the stasis room. An evil smile appeared on the little girls face. "No one is coming to help you."

  * * *

  Garza, the engineer on Dr. Li's team, cursed in frustration as he sat at the computer console. "Damn it! Another firewall just popped up!"

  Dr. Li was sitting in the chair next to him, frantically typing on the key board. "Keep trying; we've got to get them out of there."

  Charon was pacing back and forth behind the scientist. It had taken five days for him to travel to Rivet City, convince the scientist to come, then return to the Vault. To say the ghoul was getting anxious was an understatement. Anna Holt and Janice Kaplinski, Dr. Li's two other assistants, were monitoring Marcus and James' vital signs.

  "These defenses are unlike anything I've ever seen." Garza said as he wiped sweat from his brow. "If those two want out, they're going to have to fight there way out."

  Madison looked over at James' pod. "Come on, James." she whispered. "Fight!"

  * * *

  Braun kept his back turned to Marcus as he concentrated on maintaining the firewall. Marcus knew if he was ever going to get out of here, he had to act now. Quietly he picked up a large push broom that was leaning against the wall, gripped the base with both hands, and swung with all his might. A grunt escaped from Braun as the stick made contact with the back of his head, and once again, the virtual girl flickered and blinked. But Braun quickly recovered, and he spun around, raised his hand, and Marcus was sent flying into the wall at the opposite side of the room. He was about to strike again, when the dog sunk it's teeth into Braun's leg, causing the mad scientist to scream and flicker once again. "ENOUGH!"

  Marcus watched as his father was sent flying against the wall. He also noticed something else: the brick wall that Braun had erected was beginning to crack.

  * * *

  An alarm sounded from the Vault's main computer, and Garza yelled in triumph. "Yes! Firewalls are collapsing!"

  Dr. Li finally released the breath she had been holding. "Standby to inject the virus program."

  * * *

  Having subdued his attackers, Braun returned his attention to the broken firewall and began to repair it. Marcus struggled to stand up.

  "M...cus! Mar...s!"

  Marcus looked over at his father, and though he was still in dog form, his human voice was beginning to come through. "Marcus! He...concentrate! M...st...fight!"

  Marcus understood what his father was saying, and charged at Braun again. He was almost on him, when Braun turned and held him by his throat. Marcus struggled against the iron grip, and his father lunged at Braun; determined to sink his teeth into the evil girl's throat. But Braun was too fast, and he slammed the dog back against the wall. "You are ALL going to die down here!"

  As Marcus struggled to break free, he saw the brick wall behind Braun shatter and melt away.

  * * *

  "That's it," Garza yelled, "we're in!"

  Madison plugged a memory stick into the computer terminal. "Sending the virus now, get ready to wake everyone up."

  * * *

  Braun threw Marcus across the room, and the Wanderer was nearly knocked unconscious. The mad professor was about to finish both of his attackers off,
when the entire house began to shake. Outside, the entire caldisack of Tranquility Lane was shaking, and the Vault residents began to run for cover.

  Braun turned his attention back to the wall. "So they think they can stop me with a virus. Ha!"

  Marcus' vision began to return to normal, and what he saw next was both terrifying and glorious. A large, snake like creature, came out of the wall's view screen and attacked Braun, who quickly grabbed the virus with both hands. "Once my anti-virus finishes with this, I will then finish both of you!"

  * * *

  Garza slammed his fist down on the key board. "Damn it!"

  Charon ran over to his side. "What's wrong?"

  "The damn anti-virus kicked in. In a few seconds it's going to be quarantined from the system!"

  Charon turned to Li. "What does that mean?"

  Li looked down and sighed. "If the virus is quarantined...then it's over."

  * * *

  Braun tightened his grip on the virus, and Marcus could see that it was slowly losing it's strength. He was bruised and battered, but he had to get up. If he didn't distract Braun long enough for the virus to take over, he and his father would be trapped forever. Holding onto his aching ribs, Marcus forced himself up, and looked around for some kind of weapon. He spotted a cinderblock sitting on a desk, picked it up with both hands, and threw it for all he was worth. The block crashed against the back of Braun's head, and the mad scientist was knocked to the ground.

  The virus saw it's chance. It descended on Braun and wrapped itself around him like a python. Braun kicked and screamed, trying to break free. Marcus realized that the tremors were getting worse, and the house was beginning to crumble.

  * * *

  "The anti-virus program is down!" Garza screamed. "How the hell did that happen?"