This is a fan made work. Fallout 4, Vault 75 and all characters, some dialogue and intellectual properties belongs to Bethesda Game Studios, published by Bethesda Softworks. Fallout: Vault 75 is intended to be a supplemental work of fiction to provide an estimation of the events that took place in one of the mysterious Vaults built by the pre-war company Vault-Tec. Artistic liberties have been made. This is also intended to be a short novella published once a month with five chapters in total. While the story was written with the intention that any person can read it and follow the events, an interest in the Fallout series and lore would be helpful in understanding Vault 75. Please be warned for graphic content, violence, mature language and some gore. Please support the author by leaving feedback, sharing, and giving credit to the aforementioned author.

Fallout: Vault 75

DeCapo

Prologue

In another place, another time the world is coming to an end. Many have prophesized what the final days would be like; boiling seas, sackcloth's and blackness certainly and, perhaps, they are not far off the mark.

Humanity has risen over the ages, from stone and flint, to horseback and arrow, and finally to fossil fuel and crisis. So serene, so contented on the surface; most lived a life of luxury filled with automated servants who never made a mistake and never asked for wages, and, most never even got a warning before the world rained down nuclear fire.

Who shot first? No one can say. When every and all of the largest and most powerful nations took and gobbled and devoured without giving back, when each was certain of their own righteousness, not caring or even asking if they should, it doesn't matter overmuch whose finger was on that button.

In a single day the modern chapter of the world ended in flame, effectively wiping nearly all of humanity off the board of Life. But. There is hope. In those final years, those final days there were those who pricked their ears to how the wind would blow and gambled on a Maybe. Maybe the world would come to an end, maybe someone wouldbe crazy enough to detonate the most destructive force ever harnessed, and, maybe, somebody better start building a safeguard.

So the Vaults were dug, hundreds of them, scattered all over the US and perhaps, even, the world. Massive, commodious, expensive and improbable, built they were. It looked as though perhaps humanity might have a shot after all. But what is humanity without folly and greed? The Vaults were built, yes, but each with their own dark little secret. Here is the story of one of those Vaults.

Chapter One

Gather around, children, gather to me and hear the story of Vault 75. Long, long ago the world above was ruled by wise and strong leaders who provided peace and prosperity to the country of America. They built beautiful skyscrapers, filled lakes and rivers with sparkling clean water, and gave the people of America the greatest gift of all: conformity. All was well, the people were happy but there were those who grew jealous of the rich and prosperous America.

The Red Communist China was bitter and envious, angry that America had green lands filled with soda and automobiles. They wanted to take what the kind and obedient Americans had, so they gathered and gathered and gathered their soldiers and machines and marched across the world, burning and killing!

America the wise, the clever dug deep, deep under the earth. The cunning leaders of America knew that they must protect the people, so they built the Vaults. If the terrible Red Communist China came to spread fire across the earth and poison the air then the cunning America would go under the earth and build a multitude of sanctuaries, safe and snug from the foul rending teeth of their enemies.

The terrible day came when the weapon of the enemy fell upon the earth. The sky filled with a bright flash, the earth trembled, the seas boiled and the people burned to ash. But the leaders of America were prudent and knew that even though an awful thing may come to pass they would ensure the survivors of America had hope. They built Vault 75, the very Vault you were born into, and gave us a special purpose.

The children of Vault 75 are strong! The children of Vault 75 are diligent! The children of Vault 75 are born to be the Heroes of the Uptopland; capable, clever and most important of all, obedient to the Mother Overseer!

"-and so, my dear children, it is time we conclude our yearly Graduation Ceremony. Can our Top Tier Graduates stand – ah, thank you. As they quickly leave behind childhood and our Vault 75 home they go forth as top cadets, the strongest, fastest and bravest, to the World Above. Stand and put your hands together for our standard Graduates, who have already departed and await their brother and sister cadets! Let us praise them!"

Overseer Elena stood on the balcony corridor overlooking the spacious atrium, beaming amongst the sea of clapping, tiny jubilant faces below gazing up adoringly at her. Her yellow hair was a nimbus set alight by the overhead luminescent ceiling lighting and the Overseer swept her gaze over the hundreds of faces like a stocky but benevolent Madonna, raising her own hands to clap vigorously at the handful of teens that stood rigid, faces glowing, hands clasped tightly behind their backs.

That morning testing had been postponed so the inhabitants of the Vault could gather to witness the most important day in the calendar year; Graduation Day. Even the youngest had been escorted from the Under-Fives to be carefully deposited closest to the leader of the Vault. It was probably the most excitement they had seen since the previous Graduation Day. If the youngest of the crowd was closest to the leader of the underground facility, then the farthest outward were the teens who were fast coming up on their own Graduation Day. No one knew the exact population of the current residents, though the atrium was certainly at full capacity if the number of bodies that spilled into the cafeteria and sat upon awkward high places like the cooling ducts meant anything, it was a high number indeed.

Rohit Lucas, as an Outmode, an older inhabitant of Vault 75, was only a few years out from Graduation. He had seen his fair share of ceremonies and therefore had a more cynical and detached view. His lip curled slightly as he scanned the energetic and thrilled faces around him and felt disgust at how any slight change to the monotonous daily routine always seemed to be embraced with a repulsive amount of eagerness. And noise. He could barely hear the Overseer's speech, though it didn't matter much at this point, he had heard the story of the World Before and the traditions of Vault 75 so many times at this point he could recite them verbatim.

Rohit shifted uncomfortably in his metal stacking chair, having been elbowed by a beefy Elite, all bulging muscle and twitchy violent anticipation. Of the two groups the children of Vault 75 fell into Rohit was firmly on the spectrum called the Domes. He never could figure out if it meant Ivory Dome, as in a person expert in a certain field or just implied a brain so large his cranium could barely contain the information within. Well. The Elites could barely string together a sentence, nonetheless a relevant pun so he guess it didn't matter much, but the terms stuck with each successive generation trained within the Vault.

The Elites, on the other hand, were the individuals who excelled at physical exertion, as well as general deadliness with hand to hand combat or hardware, which left little room for intellectual capabilities.

There was a lot of antagonism between the two groups, something Rohit always felt as though was encouraged by the Upstairs, and kept him from saying anything, or even looking at the Elite next to him. He was under no illusion that even though he may be one of the tallest in the Vault, his bony frame wouldn't hold up against physical punishment. Something he had learned the hard way.

In fact, thinking about the Upstairs, this was the one day outside of the monthly medical inspection and the rare system malfunction within the vast Vault that he saw so many of the adult staff at once.

Not that they were much to look at. The Chief of the Scientific Division, Gibson, had been around for eons, nothing new there. He sat on the corridor balcony directly across from the Overseer, still giving platitudes and praise, surrounded by a handful of techs. There were more, undoubtedly, but they were probably running tests in the labs.

Chief Gibson was currently having a low conversation with the Head of the Medical Department, Doctor Kendrick. If Gibson was any indication of what time and a few extra pounds did to the human body Rohit wasn't looking forward to what adulthood had to offer. He had the look of a slightly deflated ball; his round face seemed to run downwards, jowls listing over an unshaven jaw like a partially melted wax candle while his rather rotund and beefy lower half fairly taxed the spindly legs of the fold-up chair to the point of bending ominously.

Doctor Kendrick, as usual, was the complete opposite of Gibson; her body was like a spear, her back ramrod straight, refusing to touch the back of the chair as though it personally offended her. Short, dark hair combed carefully away from her angular face and cut so severely the style could have been used as a guide for a perfect right angle. Rohit was intensely grateful he only had to be around her once a month; the loving way she handled the medical instruments always made the hair on his neck stand up.

Rohit glanced behind the both of them surprised at a sudden flurry of activity between a couple of the lab techs. One he didn't know, probably one of the older Outmodes that was chosen for the Science Team before Rohit had even left the Under-Fives but the other he recognized as Washington, one of the Domes, like him, but a couple of years older. Smug bastard had been crowing about being hand-picked for the Research Team, directly under Gibson.

An honor, to some, to be chosen to stay behind while the rest of the Graduates went Uptopland. To others, like the combative Elites who relished the thought of bringing violence to the World Above, Washington was a blow-black, a total disgrace. No way he'd be up on that stage with the other Elites; chronic fatigue, a tendency to break out in rash under stress and that weird split-pea soup smell that emanated from somewhere within him firmly placed Washington in the weekly head-in-the-toilet-drubbing club.

Eyes drifting back towards the opposite balcony and makeshift stage below it, Rohit felt surprise that he wasn't really envious of those select few who basked under the glow of the Overseer, rather he felt like an outside observer. Probably something to do with his role as a lab assistant for the Physical Expository Division.

Glimpses of the Overseer were even more rare than the appearance of the adult staff; she only really made public appearances on this one day. While there might be a hundred or so Graduates each year, Elite and Domes both, only the top thirty, the Top Tier, had the honor of standing so close to the Overseer, wallowing in her words of commendation.

The 'lesser' graduates, those who only had middling ranks and mediocre physical scores didn't get such a fanfare farewell. Those Graduates had already left early that morning; all the more reason for other cadets to push themselves hard enough to be in the Top Tier.

They reminded Rohit of photos he saw once, in a micro-film. Like, what was the word, those animals? Wolves? Big, sharp eyes, pointy teeth, moves like a spear through the air, and stabs whatever they are aimed at, that was the Elite.

The biggest one of them, what was his name? Abram, that was it- stood like brawny sentinel amongst his peers. Like he was carved out of stone and even at ease he radiated concentrated malice. Rumor had it Abram had snapped a classmates neck during a training exercise the other week, with apparently no effort on his part at all, and indeed he looked like an Old World Colossus. The blue form-fitting Vault uniform on him stretched across an acre of sculpted chest muscle, eased into great ridges and valleys of sinew and he rose above the sea of vault dwellers like a monolithic rock breaking the blue waters of the children of Vault 75.

The only person in the entire Vault that even came close to rivaling Abram was Alma – one year younger and a growing betting pool debated whether or not she could even be considered human and not a mythological creature. Rumor had it some of the Outmodes liked to scare the Under-Five kids shitless by telling them Alma roamed the halls after curfew and ate stragglers. Rohit couldn't be sure it wasn't entirely untrue; the first time he met her was when he was prepping the expository combat workshop for the am shift and caught a glimpse of her staring at him through the corridor that connected to the men's showers. He was struck dumb with numb astonishment, frozen in immobility by the predatory glee burning in her eyes. She slid out of the shadows like a knife, lifting one hand the size of a salad plate, deliberately cracking each knuckle.

As was the fashion for male and female cadet both, her hair was buzzed short to the scalp, but the scant hair that did grow was wildly curly. Alma was just big; there was no other way to describe it. Not fat, just all the spaces filled to capacity. Seeing her emerge from the shadowy corridor was like watching a drifting iceberg intent on crushing you flat.

It was only when Alma glanced down to see the junior lab assistant insignia pinned to his vault suit before she broke off with a disappointed grunt, wandering back down the corridor, no doubt searching for more rule breakers to flatten.

Like Abram, she was part of the select and terrifying Discipline Division, one of the Overseer's more alarming ideas of civil enforcement within the Vault; formed out of the Elites with the highest scores two years closest to Graduation it was a group of peers as judge, jury and executioner all in one. There wasn't a lot of crime in Vault 75.

As Rohit shuddered away the memory of Alma he watched the older lab technician lean closely to Washington's moon-wide face and jab an emphatic finger towards him, shoulders rigid with unspoken anger. Washington shook his head and stared straight ahead, both of them breaking apart as Gibson cast a reptilian gaze behind him and the technician leaned back in his chair, resuming passive interest in the Overseer's closing words.

Huh. What was that all about?

Overseer Elena raised an arm, and silence fell.

"Stand up, my children! Stand and place your hand over your heart, that's right. Together now;

The children of Vault 75 are strong!

The children of Vault 75 are diligent!

The children of Vault 75 are the Heroes of Uptopland!"

"Very good, and who is the beloved mother and leader of all my darling obedient children?"

"Mother Elena!" Came the deafening reply from the all the Vault.

Clasping folded hands over the shelf-like bosom, face red and weepy, Overseer Elena smiled beatifically over the crowd.

"Then let us resume our normal schedule, my darlings. Back to work! Train those muscles, exercise that brain so that one day you may stand before me a proud Hero! Top Tier Graduates, stay here please. The Science Staff will walk you through vaccination and give you your specs for the World Above. What an exciting time for you! Chop, chop – get to it, my children!"

Having been dismissed Rohit rose from his chair, buffeted this way and that by hundreds of bodies leaving the Atrium and going back to various classes throughout the Vault. He gave a final glance at Chief Gibson and the rest of the Upstairs heading back through the upper level corridors to disappear from sight until the next Graduation Day.

It was one of the iron-clad rules that had been around so long it was in the bone, the blood. Never go past second floor corridor. Ever. That was for the Adults, the Science Division, the Medical Staff, a separate and unknown world full of scientific instrumentation, timetables and Results. Anyone who disobeyed that rule met with the full force of the Discipline Division, and the cleaner bots would have to mop up what was left of them.

Sometimes Rohit caught a few clipped phrases, here and there, when the Science Techs met in the combat simulation room to take the weekly results and leave instructions on the terminal for the am and pm junior assistants. The room was large enough to have many convenient hiding places and Rohit had overheard snippets of conversation. There was a lot of chatter about 'keeping the numbers up' and 'overhead' but nothing that really gave away life in the Upstairs. Mostly, Rohit figured it was a bunch of weedy geeks like Washington, crunching numbers and configuring new and exciting torturous routines for the cadets below.

"Watch it, Broomstick! You trying to bludgeon me with that thick skull of yours?"

Rohit scowled from his sudden splayed position on the hard metal grating floor of the corridor.

"You did that on purpose, James. Why don't you watch where you're going?"

James Slater grinned unrepentantly while the moving crowd around the two boys gave appreciative snickers and wolf whistles, probably hoping for a show. James was the am junior lab assistant for the Physical Expository Division and firmly the opposite of Rohit; popular, gregarious, and one of the best Elites in their age group. He was one of those annoying people who got the best of both worlds being smart and strong and the only thing that kept Rohit from outright loathing him was the fact Rohit was the go-to person for the Upstairs computer systems analysis. No one knew how the ancient workstations ran better than Rohit, and that granted him a few perks. But there were occasions where some stupid jackass liked to push his buttons and no one did that better than James.

Pulling himself off the ground Rohit angrily brushed himself off ignoring the taunts from other cadets of 'fight!' 'fight!'.

"You forgot to log yesterday's results. Again. The next time you do it I'm reporting it to Chief Gibson." He said coldly, ignoring his stinging palms. The threat was a slightly empty one; Rohit knew that James, as one of the top Elites, was more or less untouchable and the most Gibson (or rather, one of his numerous technician lackeys) would do would be to tell James 'be more careful in the future'.

James just laughed, stretching his back unconcernedly before sauntering away.

"Blow-back." Rohit muttered to himself.

He stalked down the corridor, trying to ignore the taunting stage-whispers of,

"Isn't that the weirdo obsessed with all that Old World shit? I heard he sleeps with books, the freak."

" – don't ever ask the PM about automobiles, knife me with a rusty fork, I never thought he'd shut up."

Rohit already knew what his reputation was in the Vault, and didn't care that he had different interests than most of the other cadets. His interest in the World Before had consumed him from a young age and the Upstairs management found him unusual but useful because it was only through his tinkering with broken equipment stored in one of the repository facilities that half the tech even ran in the Vault.

However, he had to give credit to the creators of Vault 75. The main life support system; air filtration, oxygen, water cleansing, sunlight simulation, basic nutrients, heating, cooling, food preservation, all of it had run more or less on automatic regulation for over a century now without a lot of wear.

The techs Upstairs kept a close eye on the Vault systems but the terminals had constant issues and glitches.

Before he had realized Rohit had walked himself to the combat simulation room, silent without the energetic noise of students and gunfire. Damn it, he had been so distracted that he got there early. Heaving a sigh he logged into the terminal and started the setup for the pm shift of testing.

"The primary basics of the semi-automatic 10mm pistol is that it has a single chamber and barrel that fires a round, then extracts and ejects the empty case, then loads a new round. Who can tell me the difference between a pistol and a revolver?"

Most of the pm testing class, being older students, were magnificently ignoring Rohit and playing a round of blackjack on the floor of the combat room. He frowned to himself but let them be; his primary basics were mostly for the kids who were newly out of the Under-Fives and could barely get their tiny hands around the grip of a gun.

They were too young to do the full test, which required hard combat; firing multiple classes of weapons, a timed shooting range and finally hand-to-hand combat with a peer but the sooner they learned the basics, the better a shot they had at rising as either an Elite or Dome.

"Anyone?"

Some of young ones had a hard time adjusting from being moved from the relatively isolated and comfortable Under-Five nursery to the large, unruly, and often violent rest of Vault 75. There was an unspoken law that no one laid a finger on the Under-Fives and the children who had just come out of the Vaults nursery. Not that there weren't those cadets who wouldn't bat an eye at putting a bullet in a younger child but most of the Vault had a loose honor system that guaranteed the person who brought harm to the children wouldn't live out the night.

One young girl raised her hand.

"Yes, Nina, go on."

"A revolver is… um, a cylinder with lots of chambers."

"Good. Well done, Nina. Now I want you all to take this practice gun, stop crying Ethan, it's just a dummy gun, see? The chamber is welded shut. I want all of you to practice the grip I showed you and take the magazine out, and then put it back in. Nina will help you with any questions. I'm going to get the Outmo- er, the older students started on their run.

First up – Salinas, Ricardo! Go easy on the interior, would you? Punching the wall until it breaks might impress the Elite's but you're just damaging Vault property and I don't think the Overseer would approve."

"Whatever you say, Broomstick. Give me my damned gun."

As far as testing went, it was the usual; he gave the scores and some critical feedback, and the Elites threatened to cave his face in. Finally, his shift was nearing the end. Time to clear out the massive room and prep for the am shift.

This actually took quite a while and was a good chunk of his shift as the pm lab assistant; the combat simulation room was an exact replica of what was supposed to be an Uptopland city street.

Rohit was probably one of the few cadets who took enough of an interest to find out how true the model was of the World Before, and, it turns out it was pretty accurate. What a strange thought that the surface above had so much space! One replica of a city block inside the Vault seemed HUGE but apparently a single city had dozens of blocks. He kind of wished that he could have seen it before it all got blown to hell.

The main building that served as the focus for combat, stealth and capture operations was something called a… diner. An establishment that served paying patrons food. Huh. The cafeteria of the Vault was kind of similar. The cadets did have sit-down meals twice a day but the automated nutriment dispensation was mostly vitamins and the heavily modified plant proteins grown in the Vault greenhouse called Esculents. What is really was, though, was a mass shaped like a loaf of bread that had a strange rubbery grain taste. Most of the cadets called it 'Escu-don't' and ate it under protest.

Once a week the robotic controls of the cafeteria gallery would make the effort to cook real food, also grown out of the Vaults hothouses and meat simulation. On a really special day, like today at Graduation, each cadet was handed a single bottle of soda that was often used as a form of currency. There were no animals in the Vault; it was something the creators had felt would have been too difficult to sustain over long periods of time and instead, relied on synthesized replacements.

There, all was straight and ready for James to take over. Rohit scrolled the testing scores, making sure each was logged properly before his eye caught something unusual.

Wedged between 'Samuel T.' and 'William R.' were the numbers '0400'. Rohit felt his heart speed up and quickly opened the file. There was a single phrase:

The darkest hour before dawn

That meant he only had a few minutes. Hurriedly, he deleted the file and logged off the terminal, then slid the combat room doors shut, hissing as they sealed hermetically. At this time of night, or rather, morning, the Vault was pretty much dead quiet but Rohit still didn't want to run into any of the Disciplinary Division or one of the automated security bots as he was supposed to immediately return to the boys dorms after his shift, so he nearly flew to the men's lavatory.

"Hey."

James Slater leaned nonchalantly against one of the white porcelain sinks, arms crossed, looking like he hadn't a care in the world.

"This better be good, Slater."

"You still mad about me knocking your ass onto the floor? Honestly, Broomstick, it was all show. I swear I didn't take an ounce of pleasure watching you topple like a tree."

He had that stupid infectious grin that made it so damned hard to stay angry so Rohit just muttered asshole under his breath and continued,

"Well? How right on the mark are we?"

James face slid from amusement to grim fury. Rohit sucked in a breath and said,

"Shit. Tell me. You must've found something definitive."

James unzipped the upper layer of his blue vault suit and took out a sheaf of papers, silently handing them to Rohit.

After a solid five minute block of silence, Rohit put the papers down and, white faced, dropped to his knees, not even feeling the icy cold floor tiles.

"This is… you're sure? But, then – "

"Yeah, I'm sure Rohit. We wondered why there wasn't any proof of contact with the Graduates who went Uptopland. We saw the Top Tiers this morning, but did anyone see the rest of the graduates leave, and why you and me, we're tough but we would still feel it if someone put a bullet in our leg. That kid in my younger class, Choler, didn't even feel the stray bullet until I pointed out he was bleeding all over the floor.

But now, we got our proof. Vault 75 ain't no training facility, Rohit. It's a graveyard, and we're dead men walking."