art by acesential

Woohoo!

It's a great day to be a brony. Today, the Equestrian Broadcasting Company will present the long-awaited Episode 2 of the Fallout: Equestria radioplay! The episode will Saturday at 7pm EDT on PonyvilleFM. Don't miss it!

In non-Fallout-related news, today is also the day that Silly Filly Studios is releasing the much-anticipated Fall of the Empire animated feature!

And on a completely different note, I ran across this image recently on imgur. Unfortunately, I don't know the artist. But I love the message, and I wanted to share it with everyone this morning. It's a nice reminder.

Edit: art by CaptainPudgeMuffin

And now, by popular request, the continuation of the "Fallout: New York City" writings:

I have one relatively small part after this one, with I will post sometime in June. You can find the previous parts in my blog entries here and here. And again, remember: this is pure Fallout writing, and thus the story lacks the themes, virtues and ultimately positive perspective on the nature of people that makes Fallout: Equestria something uniquely pony.

I'll add an awesome Fallout: Equestria picture at the bottom to help make up for the lack of pony.

Vault 114, New York City. Day Three. 5:25 pm "...All together, inventory is at 97.3% of Vault-Tec recommendations. Noteworthy variations: medical supplies are at nearly triple Vault-Tec standard inventory. We can thank our Overseer and the other personel who have ties... excuse me, had ties with the former Coney island Hospital for the surplus. Also, armory, which is woefully understocked, thanks so very much to General Hook who once again diverted the weapons and supplies shipment meant for us to his precious Fort Christopher. But don't worry, according to Vault-Tec, a replacement shipment is scheduled for next Tuesday. Somehow, I doubt that's going to happen..."

Kitrina stood in the hallway, her Pip-Boy light reflecting off cold metal walls. Bloodstains and gaping doorways interrupted their otherwise monotonous surfaces until they jutted up the stairs beneath an archway labeled "Atrium" by a flickering light. The voice from her Pip-Boy continued, playing back an early holotape she had discovered within the Vault's entrance. Her Pip-Boy's IFF indicated a flickering red mark, fading in and out through static. "Go figure," Kitrina thought, trying to find humor, "Your power systems go to pot if you eat your handimen." Ever since Alex mentioned Vault 114, her mind had been painting bleak, horror-movie images of what they would find. But reality hadn't matched any of them. A figure in a Vault suit moved in the darkened stairwell, keeping high and shelterd. Cautious but aggressive. Hunting her. Kitrina felt a pang of conscience as she lifted a terribly old 10mm that she had looted from one of 114's other Dwellers, and triggered VATS. The world went even more eerily still. The VATS interface guided her movements, helping her aim for what little of the man that he was exposing. She aimed for his leg... ...VATS lost the targeting data, leaving her alone in the stillness. She pulled the trigger once, the gun making a weak pow, the shot missing. Kitrina exited VATS early, the change seeming much less than usual. The man crouched, backing up further, waiting for her to approach. The voice from her Pip-Boy stopped. She triggered a second log, this one from the dead-end engineering room behind her. She's spotted it half-buried in the morass of rotting remains -- not whole bodies, just clothing, personal items and the parts that their murderers didn't eat -- that filled the room. "If anyone finds this, my name is Mark Collins. I'm a systems specialist for Vault 114. I've been cut off from the others. If there are any of us who survive, and are sane, they are holed up in the Security and Overseer's wing above the Atrium, along with the remaining food. Don't worry about saving me. I volunteered for this. I have no family. And I'm the only one who knew Vault-Tec technology enough to do what needed to be done. I have a knife from the cafeteria. After I record t-this... I'm going t-to... I won't go that way..." Kitrina's throat caught. The first time she had heard this recording, she hadn't been able to keep herself from crying. Although she thought she kept Alex from seeing it. Vault 114 was populated... barely. Tactically, the Vault Dwellers provided a far different challenge than what she and her brother had faced before. The people here were not savage animals; they were not feral. And, unlike the Jokers, they were not brash, charging into gunfights with sticks and clubs. These people, the ones that were left, were hunters. The superior hunters who had survived all the others. They were driven by hunger, their minds diseased from a generation of eating human flesh. But they weren't stupid. You couldn't just out-fight them; you had to out-think them. Morally, they were murderers and cannibals, surely as bad as any raider. But unlike raiders, these people didn't chose to be sadistic filth with no regard for human life. They had made a bad choice in a situation that was far from fair. Kitrina couldn't help but feel for them. To her, these people... horrible, sick and deranged, were still... people. And that made what she and her brother had to do here so much harder than usual. "...know th-that I sacrificed my life to save the others, and p-possibly you as well. Now, if you don't come from another Vault, th-there's something you need to understand. Every citizen of Vault 114 has a device on his or her arm called a Pip-Boy. Now, the 3000-series Pip-Boy includes two highly advanced combat systems that make the people in here abnormally capable at hunting and k-killing their prey. The first is a targeting system that allows them to optimize their attacks. The second is an IFF monitor -- think of it like a compass, with markers indicating the presence of any 'life', including turrets or robotics, within range, only capable of analyzing for aggression and hostility. With their Pip-Boy's fully functional, prey not similarly equipped doesn't stand a chance. So I've jury-rigged part of the environmental subsystem to broadcast a-a sort of interference. So long as the power holds..." While Kitrina and her brother didn't exactly come from a Vault, they did have Pip-Boys of their own, and a tendency to rely on them. There was no way the people her brother had led them to rescue could possibly have known that disabling their enemy's primary advantage would disable their rescuers' as well. Still, Kit and Alex had a few advantages on their side, the first being patience. The Vault Dwellers were cautious, but their hunger-driven urges did not allow them to spend hours standing in one place. Kit, on the other hand, had been trained to stay in one spot, waiting for a target, and then waiting for the perfect shot. The job she was trained for was not for the fidgety, the easily distracted or the quickly bored. She would wait here, in this hallway, as long as it took to draw this Dweller to her. Wait here, and play the recordings, the voice of prey cajoling the Dweller until his hunger and sickness overcame his caution. "...if the p-power should fail, h-here is what you h-have to do..." The Dweller finally moved down into the archway, hesitant, ready to bolt back up the stairs. Lifting the P.O.S. 10mm, Kitrina fired three shots square into the Dweller's chest. He staggered. He looked down at his chest, where the bullets had barely cracked the armor he had cobbled together from chairs. And then his gaze lifted back to her. Hungry, calculating eyes started at her for the moment it took him to realize her gun wasn't much of a threat. Then, with a cry that sounded entirely inhuman, he charged at her, raising his weapon above his head. Kitrina barely had the time to register that the man meant to pummel her to death with a sock full of billard balls. The second advantage was superior weaponry. The armory in Vault 114 had been severely undersupplied. The centuries had not been kind to the few firearms the citizens of Vault 114 had. Even if they gathered every 10mm pistol in the Vault, Alex would have been hard pressed to cobble together more than one fully functional gun. So it was no surprise that, in the end, Vault Security hadn't bothered, opting for number over function. Their melee weapons were no better. Kitchen knives and butcher hatchets, makeshift melee weapons like this man's sock. None of them had the sort of cutting-edge (pun intended) military-spec blades that Alex wielded. The man got halfway to her when Alex moved out of one of the darkened doorways, intercepting the man. Blades designed to cut through heavy armor slid through the Vault Dweller's like a Fancy Lad's Snack Cake. The first blade gutted him. The second severed his spine. Their final advantage was teamwork.

Vault 114, New York City. Day Three. 5:58 pm "...Tina's first birthday. She seemed to love the pink, plush Buttercup that we got her. I'm so glad they had one of those left. In other joyous news, the Cornwalds have their own bundles of joy -- Nattie gave birth to twins yesterday at a little after 3pm. You should have seen the look on Ralph's face when he got the news. I swear, I thought he'd faint! I'm so happy for both of them! “However, and it pains me to put a pall on such time for celebration, these happy events do have an undercurrent of worry. I’ve been looking over the numbers, and Vault 114’s population has enjoyed an increase over the last ten years that is 17% higher than Vault-Tec’s projections. This is more than just some bad math on the part of the Vault-Tec eggheads. I think we have to consider the possibility that the elevated quality of health and medical care gifted to us by our Overseer…” Alex let the holotape play as he worked, counting on the voice to draw in any lurking Dwellers. When he entered the clinic, he’d turned this desk around so that he’d be facing the door as he hacked the terminal. And so the glow from the monitor would face completely away from the dark corner near the clinic’s single doorway, where Kitrina was crouched and ready. The holotape had come from a wall safe, along with a book (N.Y. Journal of Internal Medicine), a doctor’s bag and a plethora of old medical charts. He hadn’t been able to pick the safe; but after he hacked into this computer, he had no need to. Now, Alex sat before the computer, speed-reading through twenty decades of inter-department emails that had been flagged for archive. The messages painted a picture of a pleasant, well-adjusted community, living as best they could in protective isolation. But even in the early reports were glimpses and undercurrents -- seemingly small problems, flaws and stressers that would metastasize until they doomed the population of 114. The voice stopped. Alex took a moment to tap at his Pip-Boy, starting up a different holo-tape. This one Kitrina had found in a supply closet full of empty paint cans, scrap metal and lighting fixtures. It was, to him, the most interesting of the holo-tapes they had found, even if it seemed to only marginally relate to the larger disaster that befell Vault 114. He paused in his reading to listen. “Dr. Amos Haldstrom. June 3rd, 2094. The expedition is back. As per my previous report, I promoted at Council that we take rather radical measures to help combat the growing number of cases of Vault Depressive Syndrome amongst residents of Vault 114. It was, and still is my belief that even little improvements, like the addition of color and better lighting, could go a long way in preventing the malaise that has struck at the center of our community. “After delivering my analysis, and some heartfelt pleas, the new Overseer agreed to my proposal. Yesterday, at 8:30 am, a team lead by Doctor Hansfield left Vault 114 with the intention of traveling seven blocks to the site of the old Harry’s Home Decoration Warehouse and, if possible, bringing back supplies. “According to their initial reports, the world outside is still being ravaged by nuclear winter. New York City seemed structurally intact, but empty. Indicators suggest that the city was not the target of a direct nuclear strike, but rather that the Chinese deployed chemical, biological and radiation-attacks that annihilated the populace while leaving much of the city’s superstructure in place. Fires and conventional weapons account for the majority of the damage city structures and resources. “We were alarmed when the expedition did not return on schedule. When they returned this afternoon, they had secured enough quantities of paint to renovate over half the walls in the Vault. Unfortunately, the paint is highly irradiated. Several of the Vault’s scientists are working on a method using Rad-Away to filter the paint sufficiently to make it safe for use. “Unfortunately, Doctor Hansfield did not return with the team. On the return voyage, the expedition encountered resistance in the form of a ‘hulking green monster’ which reportedly slew Doctor Hansfield in a single blow. Due to these reports, the Overseer has forbidden any further exploration and ordered the Vault remain sealed indefinitely.” So absorbed in re-hearing the only surviving words of Doctor Haldstrom, Alex didn’t even notice the Vault Dweller as it slid silently into the room. Kitrina, however, had not been distracted. Alex’s attention was brought sharply to the here-and-now by the echoing report of her hunting rifle. The Vault Dweller’s head exploded, his body crumpling momentum carried it into the desk. Alex jumped back in surprise, turning to his sister who was already lowering her weapon and giving him a smart-alek look when the second Vault Dweller launched around the doorway and grabbed the barrel of her gun! Alex registered the look of shock on Kit’s face. Together, they had surmised that the cannibal population had reached a critically low number, such that it was no longer possible for the Vault Dwellers of 114 to maintain even a tribal or gang society. Everyone was food in everyone’s eyes. The idea that there might be couples, possibly even mated pairs, still working together hadn’t crossed their minds. The woman was fast and strong, much stronger than Kit. She wrenched the rifle from his sister’s hands with hardly and effort. And then, lifting it like a club, she brought down the butt of the rifle in an arc aimed at Kit’s head. Kit was faster, kicking the legs out from under the Vault Dweller and scrambling away as the woman fell. Alex leapt over the desk and had managed to draw one of his knives as he crossed the short distance. The knife came down into the back of the woman’s neck. She went down in a heap. Alex stumbled over her, stopping himself against the doorway. He was panting, sweating. His stressed lung burned. He turned and slid down the doorway until he was sitting next to the body. Trying to catch the breath that was trying to elude him.

Vault 114, New York City. Day Three. 6:15 pm “This is Doctor Willard, Vault 114, Head of Psychiatrics. The date is April 22nd, 2031. Subject: Ernest Smiroff. Mr. Smiroff has been under the care of the Vault Psychiatric Department for six years, suffering from acute Vault Depressive Syndrome. In fact, Ernest has been the most severe case we have studied. “At approximately 10:30 am Tuesday morning, Mr. Smiroff suffered a psychotic break, following the loss of his job as chief engineer. Since then, Ernest has displayed erratic and extremely anti-social behavior, as well as paranoid delusions. These delusions seem to focus around the Overseer, Mrs. Pilsbury in resource management, and the Vault Opening Committee. Ernest believes that opening the Vault will result 114 being flooded with lethal radiation and overrun with mutated monsters. He furthermore seems convinced that certain individuals, namely those mentioned above, are acting under nefarious commands to lead the Vault to its doom. “Unfortunately, in an attempt to ‘save us’, Mr. Smiroff has sabotaged the control systems for the Vault door, rendering us unable to open the door from the inside. All proposals regarding expeditions to find food and supplies have been tabled until the mechanism can be repaired. A task made considerably more difficult because Mr. Smiroff was the only member of the engineering staff experienced with that system. In addition to causing damage, Mr. Smiroff removed several critical and apparently non-replaceable components to the door control system. Those components have not been found. We currently have him locked in Isolation Room Three under close observation in the hopes that he swallowed them.”

The hallway had been painted a two-tone of rusty red and mustard, a color scheme Kitrina found unfortunate. The hallway gave way to the Atrium; Kitrina’s Pip-Boy light illuminated pleasant greens and bright yellows – “happy colors” that reminded Kitrina of the children’s wing a lifetime ago – and sooty black. The roof and the undersides of the walkways were all deeply stained with decades of smoke. The Atruim had served as a barbeque pit. It was probably the only room large enough and well-ventilated enough to allow the Dwellers to cook once a horrified Overseer had sealed the kitchens. The stink of roasting human flesh had sank into the pain in layers. The room reeked even through her gas mask. Tactically, the room was a killing zone. People above could fire down with impunity on people below, so long as they could keep the stairwells between the floors sealed. But that was easier said than done, and would require too many people. Multiple exits lead to parts of the Vault they hadn’t explored yet. She half expected the doors to slide open and the room to fill with starved cannibal Dwellers as soon as they reached far enough into the room. But for now, they were the only ones in here. No, check that – she was the only one in here. Alex had stopped back in the hallway and was looking over the bodies of two dead Dwellers, their most recent kills. “What?” Alex didn’t look up. “I was considering that maybe we should try to take a couple of the Pip-Boys off of these guys. Could be handy, either for trade or just spare parts.” Pip-Boys were some of the hardiest pieces of pre-war super-technology still around; Kitrina couldn’t see why they would need spare parts. But Alex was the one who understood these things, so she didn’t argue. “Pip-Boys aren’t something you can just pick open, though. It would take me quite a while to unlock them, and…” Kitrina sighed heavily. Walking to the nearby firebox, she opened the red door and pulled out the fireaxe still hidden inside. Even as Alex was talking, she strode over to the bodies, raised the axe, and brought it down on one arm with a bone-cracking whunk! A few more chops, and two Pip-Boy-wearing arms were ready for the duffle bag. “You can unlock them later when we’re out of this hell-hole.” Kitrina swore, for being so smart, sometimes her brother seemed quite stupid. Paying Alex’s stares no attention, she strode back into the Atrium began looking around until she spotted the sign marking the Security and Overseer wing. “Before we go any deeper into this place, let’s get up there and make sure there actually is someone to save.” Kitrina had to admit, the likelihood of that had increased dramatically with their first Vault Dweller encounter. If anyone was still alive, survival was possible. The only other reason for them to be here – hopes of finding a safe haven to call their own – was, in her opinion, a bust. She knew Alex was seeing the clean beds, functional service areas, still working (barely) electricity, purified water... but she was seeing a front door that they could never dare shut, and a place that reeked of carrion so badly that it would draw a fairly nasty portion of New Yorks animal kingdom. Not to mention the very good chance that, without their Pip-Boys, they couldn’t be sure had been cleared of its flesh-eating populace. Alex took some convincing. He didn’t like moving into a new area, leaving their backs to places they hadn’t cleared. But eventually, she persuaded him. Together, they made their way carefully across the empty expanse of the Atrium, up the stairs and onto the balcony until they were facing a door, beside Vault 114’s circular overwatch window. The door to the Security and Overseer’s wing was sealed from the inside. Beside the door, people shuffled behind soot-darkened layers of armored security glass. There were survivors on the other side of the door. Now they just had to convince them that she and her brother were here to save them, not eat them. “Hello, somebody called for a rescue?” Alex pressed the intercom button and called into the voicebox. No response. The dark shuffling forms stopped moving. He looked to her with an eyebrow raised. “Try again?” was all Kitrina could think to answer. Out of habit, she lifted her rifle, turning to cover behind them, worried their voices would bring the maddened Dwellers from every shadow. “Hello? My name is Alex. We’re from,” Kitrina could hear the pause in his voice, “…outside. We got your message at the Coney Island Hospital. We’re here to get you out.” Silence. But this time, figures moved. Alex shrugged. “Want to give it a try?” People tended to respond to her brother better than to herself. But maybe this lot would be different. Or maybe her twin brother was suggesting that somehow the starving, huddled remnants of the Vault would find more in common with her. She wondered if she should hit him. “Drop your weapons!” The voice from the speaker was tinny and cracked, but still radiated authority along with its desperation. The command, honestly, was not a surprise. How often did the cannibals try to get in using similar word. Still, once they were in, one look at their clothing alone should tell the survivors that she and her brother were indeed from outside. Kit carefully laid her rifle on the ground. If all else failed, she had a little something in the duffle bag… something she had picked up while Alex was scavving gas masks. Alex seemed to have similar thoughts, drawing out his knives and laying them down. Then, to Kit’s dismay, he set down the duffle bag, and kicked it over the side of the balcony. It hit the floor below with an unpleasant sound. Kitrina shot her brother a look. “Okay, I get you didn’t want the LMG in reach, but that’s not all I had in there.” Alex grimaced. “Yeah, but we also had two severed arms in there. Me, I’m thinking that might put a damper in our ‘hey, trust us, we’re not cannibals’ approach.” Kitrina groaned. Her brother had a point. She had forgotten about those. The door to the Security and Overseer’s Wing opened. Beyond was a darkened room full of computer banks, each with a vertical stripe of glowing red. “Enter.” Alex shot her a raised eyebrow before stepping in. Kitrina entered. The door slid shut behind her. Also not a surprise. Still, the hair on the back of her neck stood painfully. With the gas mask obscuring her vision, and the loss of her Pip-Boy IFF making her feel even closer to blind, walking anywhere in here without her gun felt like a big mistake. Something struck her in the back of the head, hard! Bursts of light exploded across her vision and she felt the world spin away. The last thought she had before passing out was that yes, it had been a big mistake after all.

Vault 114, New York City. Day Three. 8:15 pm "So, what, are you going to eat us now?" They were in the Overseer's office. His sister was kneeling, rope tying her hands behind her back and binding them to her ankles. Just like he was. Helpless, dried blood running down the side of her face, and yet still mouthing off. It was times like this he remembered how much he loved her. "Of course not," one of the men said appeasingly. Alex rolled his eyes -- these men had ambushed and tied them up, yet this one actually had the chutzpah to sound wounded by the question. "Eating another person is a tragic act, only to be resorted to when there is no other option. You and your sibling, dear girl, have presented us with another option. Why would we eat you? We aren't like them. We aren't animals." At some point, these "survivors" had been forced to resort to cannibalism themselves. Comparatively recently, as these people were only starting to suffer the sickness that comes from the prolonged eating of human flesh, whereas those outside had been feasting on each other for at least a generation -- all their lives. "Well, gee, then why don't you untie us?" Kitrina spat back, arching and pulling against her bonds. Unlike the rest of the Vault Dwellers, these men hadn't devolved into rabid hunters. Instead, with every self-excusing word they spoke, Alex could tell they had clung to the idea of retaining their civilized humanity the way shipwreck victims cling to bits of flotsam. Even now, when there were, at best, three of them left, they still carried themselves like they had claim to a politer, "more civilized" way of eating each other. The decision on who to butcher up next was probably all very pragmatic, even democratic. Alex wondered if they drew straws. The two men stood over his backpack, sorting through its contents. One of them had clearly fetched their weapons, as one was wearing Alex's knives in the belt of his security uniform. The other had his sister's rifle slung over his shoulder. The third was a boy, no more than nine, dressed in a child's Vault Suit with the number 114 faded on the back. When the men had dumped the contents of Alex's backpack, the child had snatched a pack of Rad-Away (attracted, Alex guessed, to the orange glow the packet gave off) and scurried off to a corner to play with it. The men had taken their gas masks; Alex could only guess what diseases the air held under the gut-churning reek. The men had not, apparently, found the duffle bag. The man with Alex's knives pulled one out of his belt and laid it on the floor, watching Alex and Kitrina with warnings in his eyes. "I'm afraid we can't do that. But we will leave you this. Once we're gone, you can cut yourselves free." After you've taken all our weapons and supplies, Alex thought, and closed the door, locking us in with your friends outside. Kitrina was much more vocal, "What the fuck's wrong with you people? If you want to go, let us lead you out. Four people with weapons are better than two." Alex, however, had figured it out. These people were desperate, nearly done. Another week, and even they wouldn't have been left. The appearance of his sister and himself must have seemed like the ultimate eleventh-hour save. What they needed to escape was an open Vault door and quality weapons to survive... and they had just given them both. But he and his sister, their salvation, represented a reality they couldn't handle. Alex had read enough from the computer logs to gather what had happened. The population of Vault 114 had increased beyond the projections Vault-Tec had used for stocking food supplies. When food began to run low, the people of the Vault started talking about opening up. A fairly hot debate, considering the nightmare stories that had evolved about the above world from a single outside excursion generations before. In truth, opening, even if only to scavenge for more supplies, would probably have saved everyone. There were caravans and functioning trade settlements nearby even back then. The GEU border was only a mile away. But a single unstable individual sabotaged the door, locking everyone inside. The Overseer tried to keep the problem quiet, but the rationing he instituted sparked rumors, then panic. The Overseer had the remaining food moved to a highly secure storage area in the Security and Overseer's Wing, and put Security in charge of guarding it as well as keeping the peace... ensuring loyalty and discipline the only way he could -- by giving the security staff preferenced rations. Things degraded until only the Overseer, his family and the security staff were getting any food at all, and they sealed themselves within the wing. Eventually, even they ran out of food. And when that happened, the survivors only saw one option -- becoming like the people outside -- people they had learned to revile as sub-human monsters. For decades, they lived with cannibals waiting to tear them apart, witnessing their barbarism through the windows of their self-imposed cell. And no matter how bad things got inside, they could remain grounded in the self-image that they were better, superior to the "filthy cannibal animals" beyond their door. When they were forced into cannibalism themselves, even all the layers of ritual and civility they employed to obscure their depravity could not prevent the self-loathing that would warp their psychology. "They don't want any witnesses," Alex explained, staring at them while keeping his tone pleasant and un-accusing. "Look at us..." Alex knew they didn't look like anyone from Vault 114. For example, the suits they wore resembled Vault Suits, but the markings were very different, as was the design of their Pip-Boys. The supplies they carried bore further evidence, as did their state of health. "...We're proof to them that there are people living up there. Towns at least, maybe even a whole rebuilt country for all they know. If they want a new life, they don't want people knowing what they did to survive down here." It was beyond not-wanting, though; this was beyond mere shame and guilt. It would destroy them. Alex and Kitrina presented a threat to them beyond physical danger. One of the men, as if unable to help himself, added, "It's for the boy's sake." Alex wondered if the boy's mother had offered her life as a meal so the boy could eat. He suspected she had. Kitrina hissed indignantly. "So we come and rescue you, and you're going to leave us trapped in here for our trouble?" She turned to Alex, "I've got an idea: no more rescue missions." They watched as the men gathered their belongings together and called to the boy. One man picked him up protectively, the child wrapping his arms around the man's neck, still clutching the bright orange pack of Rad-Away. They walked down the hall, through the door into the next room, heading towards the computer rooms and the Atrium beyond. The door slid shut with a pneumatic hiss, leaving Alex and Kitrina alone behind. Kitrina flopped forward onto her chest (a harsh gasp escaping her as the chest-plate over her badly bruised breast hit the floor) and began inching her way towards the combat knife that the men had left behind. Within moments, they were free. Alex was up and running before his sister could ask "What's the plan now?" The plan was survival. Even if he sympathized with their plight -- a distraction he felt he couldn't afford -- those men could not be allowed to make it to the Vault door if he and his sister were to live. Those men had ensured that; they had sealed their own fate. Through the circular overwatch window, he could just make out the trio walking out onto the balcony. The man had set the boy down; he walked beside them, slowing their pace but allowing both men to hold weapons at the ready. Alex dashed to the Overseer's computer. Password locked. Fortunately, the scrambling algorithm was an easy one. He could do this. "Don't think about what you're doing," he told himself sharply. "Just do it." He'd gotten them into this mess -- he'd gotten his sister into this -- and he would be damned before he let her die because of it. He was in! Alex swept through the subdirectories on the Overseer’s computer, looking for control and system overrides. His first action was to close and lock the door to the Overseer’s office. He wanted to lock the door to the entire wing, but that was not an option from this terminal, so the room they were in would have to do. The trio outside had barely made it down the stairs and into the Atrium when the Alex cut the power throughout the Vault. Alex breathed a heavy sigh, not entirely of relief. He turned, and saw Kitrina standing at the sealed doorway, illuminated by the cold blue-tinted light of her Pip-Boy, his combat knife still in her hand. Staring at him silently. She didn’t need to say anything. Alex knew that she had seen what he had… her Pip-Boy’s IFF had lit up like Christmas: two blue lines -- one for himself and one for that little boy down there -- and a whole host of red ones. The two “survivors” who had assaulted them, and the pack of Vault Dwellers descending upon them, their own Pip-Boy IFF’s pointing out the trio’s location like a picture on a menu. Alex winced ever so slightly as the gunfire started in the Atrium beneath the overwatch window. He couldn’t meet his sister’s eyes, so he stared at the Overseer’s chair. They both knew: by turning off the power, he had just killed that little boy. Vault 114 demanded horrible acts to survive.

art by mistermech