Richard Walski's Story, Book 1

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Richard Walski's Story Chapter 1: Vault Opening

Vault 10. A capacity for 2000 people for 120 years. July 31st, 2227, Vault 10 holds 1738 people and it has been 147 years since the Vault door sealed. Overseer Edmund Fly has announced the Vault opening for July 31st at 13:00. Hallway time displays have been set for the countdown. Current display: 00:10:11.



Richard Walski had been a Vault dweller for 13 years as of last week and his job was in the process of being selected. That is, until Overseer Fly made the announcement, suddenly and without warning, last night.

Richard had been extremely excited all night and almost every citizen was in the library, dining halls and the meeting rooms sharing thoughts and concerns. A lot of people were worried about this, “But,” Richard though, “They’ve been Vault dwellers all their lives, so it’s natural for them to be wimps.”

Ever since Roland had learned to read, he would read the great western novels from the archives. All day and night, he dreamt of the gunslingers of the old west and how they stood in the gritty streets with their revolvers in hand. He dreamt of tackling bank robbers and having shoot outs with crooked ranchers. He had convinced his father to let him acquire clearance to the weapon training centre at age 10 and managed to hit the ring around the bull’s-eye at 20 yards once in the 3 years following that day.

When his job processing had started the day after his birthday, he first question the interviewer had asked was, “So Richard, what would you like to be?”. He said like as though he was sure the boy wouldn’t get the job he wanted and the question was only to lift the mood.

“A gunslinger!” Richard blurted out, without thinking. He knew that wasn’t a possibility and probably would’ve settled for security guard.

The man’s eyebrows had risen over his thickly rimmed black glasses at this. “Gunslinger? Hmmm, you ARE referring to those men in the western novels in the library archives, correct?”

Richard was staring at the desk between him and the man and shifted uncomfortably in the steel chair. “Yeah, sorry. I meant a guard or something…”

The interviewer pulled off his glasses and leaned back in his chair. He touched the arm of his glasses to his lips for a second, as if in deep thought over this. Then he smiled and lowered the glasses, “You know, we have positions in a certain…adventurous job.” Richard snapped to attention. The interviewer’s smile broadened, “It’s more of a volunteer position, you could still be a guard until you’re required for it.”

“What is it? What’s the job?!” Richard could barely take the anticipation welling up in his chest.

The interviewer leaned forward and put his elbow on the desk, pointing an arm of the glasses at Richard, “How would you like to volunteer to go out and scout outside of the Vault when it opens?”

“REALLY?!” Richard’s eyes were ready to pop out of their sockets!

The interviewer laughed and put his glasses back on as he pulled out a paper from a folder on his desk, “Keep in mind that you won’t be eligible for the position until you’re 18. But yes, I am serious. By the looks of things here,” He scanned the paper with his finger, “There are still 32 positions out of a suggested 50 still not filled. When the Vault opens, we will need more volunteers to make sure it is safe out there.”

“I’ll do it! I’ll scout! Sign me up now before it fills!” Richard had stood up, sending the chair sliding 5 feet away.

“Well, there’s no danger of it filling, not a lot of people are willing to leave home,” He gestured with his hands about the room, “So willingly as you. So you should definitely be signed up for a guard position. The skills learned in it will help for sure in that position. But, remember Richard, the processing still has to go through, so there’s no huge guarantee you’ll be a guard yet.”

“I’ll do better than anyone! I swear!”

The interviewer laughed, “Well, with spirit like that, you’ll probably make it! But,” He glanced at his Vault issued watch, “Our time is up. Go on, we’ll meet again in a couple weeks.”

Here it was, a couple weeks from that meeting and everything was on hold. Richard was in the Vault gardens with some of his friends. They had chosen the least crowded announcement monitor to stand around, so they could watch the Vault Opening.

“What do you think it’ll look like out there?” Asked a small boy with big round glasses.

“I hope it’s a desert, with cacti and sand dunes and everything!” exclaimed Richard. The other kids looked away from the screen, which was currently displaying a commercial ad for the GECK, and looked at Richard with confused and worried expressions.

“Why would you want that?”

“’Cause then it would be just like the Old West! With little towns in need of gunslingers to save them from crooked ranch owners!”

The small boy looked back up at the monitor, in time to catch a procedure movie showing the Vault famous Pip-Boy demonstrating how to set up a Vault Tent and said, “I hope it isn’t a desert…maybe all of the plants and animals came back…”

“2 minutes until Vault Opening!” A loud voice announced from the speakers throughout the garden, halting the simulated chirping birds, “2 minutes!”

“Maybe it never happened.” Said a taller boy with red hair, “Maybe the bombs didn’t fall and nature grew back where humans destroyed it.”

“No way!” Said Richard, “Those bombs fell, that’s why we’re in a fall-out shel-ter!” He enunciated the last words.

“But, it could’ve been a hoax…and…”

“Shut up, you’re being stupid!” Richard was becoming angry with these wimps! “You’re just a bunch of Vault wimps!”

“1 minute until Vault Opening! 1 minute!”

“Wimps?” A larger and far more ill tempered than Richard had been walking by on his way to another monitor. “We’re all Vault wimps, runt?”

Richard’s temper had gotten the best of him. “Yeah! All you guys are scared of the outside world and wanna stay in your precious Vault forever!”

“40 seconds to Vault Opening! 40 seconds!”

They monitor flickered from its commercials and changed to the fuzzy feed from the camera in the Vault airlock. The red lights were only a shade of grey on these monitors. The Vault caution alarm was sounding, a slow siren wail that brought back terrible memories for those who had watch the archive videos of the day of the bombs. All Richard heard was a ringing as the larger boy landed a fist to his ear.

“Stop it! The Vault Opening is gonna start!” The boy with the round glasses yelled as his other friends rushed to help Richard.

“20 seconds to Vault Opening! 20 seconds!” A full out struggle had ensued. The larger boy was clearly capable of taking all of them on. Richard was sure he was going to miss the Vault Opening, unless he did what the gun range and practically every person in the Vault forbid him to do. He went into his hip sack (a flat bag that attached to the belt on his Vault suit) and pulled out his Vault pistol. The larger boy immediately stopped fighting and ran. Richard’s friends stood staring wide eyed at Richard.

He glared back, “What? He’s gone, ain’t he?”

“Vault Opening commencing! Clear airlock doors!” A brief cartoon of the Pip-Boy stepping back from the airlock door interrupted the feed from the camera.

Everyone’s attention snapped from Richard to the monitor. The Vault door had already begun to roll aside. A crackling came over the speakers.

“This is James Henson, leader of the Vault Expidition Team. We’ve entered the airlock and are preparing to scout outsi… Oh my GOD!! Close the doors! Close them NOW!!!”

The boys watched in horror as a dark shape tore into the airlock and swatted the one they assumed to be James across the room.

The announcement voice started again, “On behalf of Vault-Tec, welcome to the New World!”
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I'll post one every couple of days untill I get to the point that I've written up to, then we let brainstorming take its course.

 

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Richard Walski's Story Chapter 2: "Warning!"

Vault 10. The first Vault to open under no circumstance other than the thought that it was about time. The Vault has opened and Richard Walski has witnessed the first terrible rule of the wastelands…the weak will not live.



“Warning! Non-Vault-personnel have entered the airlock! Citizens will return to their rooms and secure the doors! Guards will report to Floor 1 and secure that floor!” The pre-recorded voice was blaring this warning repeatedly over the loudspeakers throughout the Vault. The sirens were wailing in between warnings twice as loud and twice as fast as before. Red lights were flashing throughout the Vault now, and every soul within the lead confines of the shelter was in panic.

Richard and his friends were still stunned in front of the monitor in which they saw James, the leader of the Vault Expedition Team, swatted aside by some great, hulking monster. The group of 4 boys only stood in place, eyes wide. Richard still held the Vault pistol in his right hand, though it was forgotten. On the monitor, the dark shapes continued to pour into the airlock, until one got too close, causing the picture on the monitor to flip one frame, then cut to the Vault-Tec symbol rotating about a rotating globe. The suddenness of the cut out caused all the boys to jump and then realize that they were in very real danger.

The small boy suddenly managed to stutter, “Wh-wh-what are those?!”

“I have no idea…I think we need to get to our rooms…the warning says so…” The taller boy was beginning to turn to leave.

“You guys can go.” Richard was staring straight ahead, and he took a clip out of his hip sack and stuck it into the gun. “I’m gonna help the guards.”

“No!” The small boy regained his ability to speak at Richard’s suggestion, “Richard, you can’t go up there! You saw what they did to the Expedition! They’ll kill you!”

“Better me tha…”

“Shut up, Richard!” The tall boy said, “You call us wimps for being scared, but we had a good reason! Now you wanna go get yourself killed?! Who’s stupid now?”

“I’m going! I don’t care what you say!” At that, Richard took off to the exit from the gardens marked “Main Elevators”. As he ran, he could barely make out the calls of his friends to come back.

The siren and the warning rang in his ears as he ran for the elevators; much like his friends’ calls did only a corner ago. In Richard’s juvenile mind, there was only one thought: get to floor 1 and stop those monsters alongside the guards. His pistol felt…somehow right in his hand, like he was meant to carry it. Meant to run to those elevators. Meant to go to the first floor…

At the elevators, Richard pressed the middle elevator call button. The middle elevator went to every floor of the Vault; the others were there for the convenience of low security clearance citizens. The huge 10 haloed by the shape of the Vault door split down the middle and opened instantly. The sliding of the doors echoed eerily down the hall. The other citizens had secured themselves in their rooms already. Those who hadn’t, had more important roles.

Richard stepped in and hit the number 1 at the top of the set of buttons on the panel. The light behind it flashed on, and then quickly flashed off. The announcer voice came over the speaker in the 10 by 20 foot elevator: “The floor you have selected is currently under lockdown, all automated services to this area are shut down.” Richard swore under his breath and selected 2. The voice repeated its response to that button as well. He hit 3 and 4 and got the same response. Before the voice could finish, Richard punched the button labelled 5. The light came on…and stayed on. The doors shut and the elevator began moving up. The flip display above the elevator began flipping down from 11.

Outside the elevator, Richard could hear the sirens and warning as he passed by each floor. The elevator began to slow its ascent as the display flipped closer to 5. On 6, the elevator stopped and opened its doors. The voice began again: “The floor you selected…”

Richard stepped out of the elevator and looked both ways. This was the scientists’ residential floor. Richard looked up and down the halls. There was no sign of life. Then a distant clattering of boots on steel steps echoed from around the corner. A hollow *Ka-chunk* as light flooded the darkened wall across from the stair access. Richard sprinted to the light.

“Run! C’mon, Charlie! Get the hell down here! Jump the last 5 steps on each flight or something! C’MON!” A man’s voice was echoing from the doorway. Richard got around the doorway and stood staring into the doorway at a strong looking man in the standard Vault suit and holding a Vault pistol in his left hand. Richard spotted a shell jammed sideways in the chamber. He was calling up the stairway, apparently to a fellow guard or maybe some common citizen, Richard didn’t know, but he knew something was coming down behind him. From above came the gasping whimpering of a man running for his life.

There was a loud clanging as wreckage of steel stairs came crashing through the opening in the middle of the stairwell.

“RUN!!” The man yelled again.

Richard spoke up, “Hey, mister!”

The man whipped around, pointing the jammed gun in Richard’s face, his eyes wild with fear. Upon realizing it was only a boy, the man’s eyes softened, and then grew concerned and confused, “What are you doing here, kid! The Vault is in danger! Go home!”

“Give me your gun!”

“Go hom… what?”

“Your shell jammed sideways, the chamber is probably bent! Here, take my gun!” Richard tossed his gun to the man as he passed his to Richard.

“Thanks, those things seem to be sensitive to the flash on these babies.” He leaned back into the stairwell and, after yelling at Charlie to get the hell out of the way, shot twice up into the stairwell. There was a startled sounding guttural roar from the stairwell and there was a halt to the clanging. After a few quick grunts, there was a thumping fading off into the upper levels.

“Charlie, get the hell in here!” He pulled a thin man wearing a lab coat over his Vault suit through the doorway and slammed the door shut. He opened a panel all but hidden in the wall beside the door, entered a code on the pad within and 3 thick bolts slid over the door. The man turned to Richard, “The names Tim. Tim Francis. What’s your name kid?”

“I’m Richard”

“You got a last name?”

“Oh, uh… Walski.”

“Nice to meet you Rich.” Tim took Richard’s hand in his own massive one and gave it a quick shake. “Now, tell me, why were you here? Or, more importantly, why were you carrying a gun?”

“Uh, I train at the gun range on level 17. I came up here to help.”

“Well, you did help. I don’t suppose you can fix that?”

“Actually, I can.” Richard reached back into his hip sack and pulled out a pair of needle-nosed pliers and a flat-headed screw driver, “You gotta straighten out the chamber slide every time this happens. Otherwise, you’ll be pulling out shells every time you shoot.” Richard set to work on the gun.

“Uh, excuse me!” Charlie had just gained back enough breath and wit to speak again, “Shouldn’t we seal ourselves in one of the rooms? Those things will be back!”

“He’s right, we should hide. C’mon, Rich, let’s knock on a couple of doors here.” Tim was starting down the hallway.

“No!”

Tim turned, “Uh, kid, this is no time to be throwin a temper tantrum. We can flash those bastards all we want, they’re only going to get used to it! Now, come here!”

“No! I never seen what those monsters do yet, but, that thing was knocking the stairs apart! A little door isn’t going to stop them!”

Charlie suddenly went white as his logical mind took into account Richard’s suggestion. “He’s right! Those things are going to come through here and rip through each and every door! Oh god! We’re all dead anyway!”

“Well, what do you think we should do then, Rich? ’Cuz I HAVE seen what they do, and I know what don’t do **** to them! These bullets,” He flashed a clip, “They do nothing to them! It goes in, they barely feel it!”

“Well, uh…” Richard looked down, deep in thought. Then his head snapped up, “Level 30!”

“What about it?” Tim now looked at Richard in a different light. After all, any idea was better than dying.

“The overseer’s platform! That, and the weapon room down there carries way bigger guns than these!” Richard waved the jammed gun in front of him, “They got narrow hallways down there, right?”

“Actually… Tim! They do! And the amount of firepower down there might be enough!” Charlie’s face was flushing now.

“Kid, you may have something. C’mon!”

They rushed to the main elevator. Upon hitting the call button, that voice came over the speakers, “The floor you are on is currently in lockdown. All automated services have been halted on this floor.” Tim opened another panel above the call button and entered another code. After a brief moment, the doors opened. Tim smiled.

“I may not have trained a lot on the range, but I know the codes like the back of my hand!”

They stepped in and Tim pushed the button at the very bottom. 30 lit up.

 

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Richard Walski's Story Chapter 3: Level 30

Vault 10, level 30. The control centre of the Vault. Here, Overseer Edmund Fly controlled and monitored all areas of the Vault. Now, all of the seats at the vast banks of monitors and control panels were empty. The only sign of life was the tired sighs from the Overseer’s platform.

Outside the elevator, the rising and falling of the sound of sirens and the announcer voice suddenly stopped. Richard looked up from the pistol, almost finished fixing the chamber, “Why’d it stop?”
Tim shook his head, “I don’t know, only the Overseer can shut it off, and he’d only shut it off when the threat is gone… and I don’t think they just decided to walk out.” The flip display was just hitting 19 when the most horrifying noise anyone could hear in an elevator; the sound of cables being snapped.
One the first snap, the lights went out in the elevator. Charlie let out a yelp and promptly ran into the wall. Richard panicked. He dropped his tools, picked up the gun, and pointed it at the roof. He pulled off one shot, illuminating the large elevator for a brief second. Tim blinked after the flash, seeing the outlines of Charlie lying on his back by the wall and Richard pointing his gun at the ceiling.
“Rich! What’re you doin?!”
Richard lowered his gun in the darkness. The red emergency lights switched on, filling the elevator with a dim red glow. Richard lowered the gun, “I don’t know…I just got scared…wha…” Another twang of cables made the elevator drop a couple feet instantly then continued its steady descent.
“Oh, shit! Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!” Charlie had turned over onto his stomach and was holding the back of his head in his hands. Richard had fallen and was beginning to hyperventilate, “Are we gonna fall?!”
Tim got up and checked the display in the dim light: 26. “Damn,” He hit 27, 28, and 29, “We’ve got to get off while this thing is still hangin on!” The display, already at 27, flipped to 28 as the elevator slowed. Another snap from above the elevator sent it down far more than 2 feet. The elevator doors opened in mid drop just in time to see the startled faces of other Vault dwellers on level 28 fly by.
A loud squeal ensued as the elevator brakes locked on. The elevator stopped dead, thanks to the brake notches installed onto the rails. The open door showed the back of the main elevator door on the outside. Tim got off the floor and ran to the doors, pulling the manual open bar. The tendons in his neck stood out as he strained against the never-before-used (actually, never even tested when Vault-Tec designed it) lever. The doors broke by whatever they were stuck on and banged open, causing Tim to slip on the bar and put a huge rip in the arm of his Vault suit, as well as a long cut in his arm.
“Ah, damn! Shit, that hurts…at least nothing grows in here. Don’t think it’ll get infected.”
“Ok, let’s go!” Richard dashed out of the elevator.
“Wait!” Tim turned back into the elevator and reached up, “I need to save some people.” He slid a panel aside and yelled up at the people leaning into the opening to see the elevator that went by. “Get the hell back in there! Close the doors, somehow! Those things are going to fucking come down the shaft!”
At this, the people got out of the door way and pushed the call button again. Tim heard the start of the “No service” recording before the doors closed.
“All right, all clear. Get the hell up Charlie; we’ll need you for the Vault defence network. That is, provided our Overseer has run like I expect a big-shot would.” Charlie crawled to his feet and stumbled out of the elevator, falling on the floor outside of the elevator. He knelt on the floor shaking for a moment before Tim grabbed the back of his scientist’s coat and pulled him to his feet, leaving a blood smear on the back of his coat.
“Ah, hell. This is really bleeding bad.” He ripped the rest of his sleeve off and wrapped it over as much of the cut as he could. Richard was already opening the door to the stairs, “C’mon, floor 30 is the last one!”
“Richard, no! The things’ll see you!” Tim was running to close the door.
“No, no! Don’t worry, the last few floors must be concrete!” This was true, after 5 floors of concrete stairs, Vault-Tec decided to recycle the scaffolds to make the rest of the stairs. “Let’s go, Tim!” Richard began to run down the stairs.
“Charlie! Come the hell over here! I’m not going to drag you down these damn things!” Charlie began to walk down the stairs, hugging himself in fear. “Maybe throw ya down, get moving!” Tim started down after Charlie.
From above them, came a distant clanging. “Oh, shit. Oh god no!” Charlie paled and started to run down.
Tim yelled after him, “Charlie! They’re above the concrete section! They can’t get…” The last part of his sentence was drowned out by a new sound. The sound of a steel rod driving through concrete. Vault-Tec stopped with the concrete just above the 29th level.
The rod drove down through the ceiling of the stairwell over the steps leading to level 30 and through Charlie’s left shoulder. It stopped at the steps, effectively trapping Charlie.
“OH GOOODD!!!” Charlie screamed as he flew off of his feet. The force of his body flying forward forced the bar to crack his shoulder blade completely in half and slide further up. Charlie slid down the pole while his feet were still in mid-air. His right leg made a crunching noise as he landed on the steps. Charlie started to scream.
“Holy shit! Charlie!” Tim ran down to Charlie and tried to pull the rod back up, but it wouldn’t budge. Richard appeared around the corner of the lower staircase, “What hap…oh, man!” Richard paled at the sight of Charlie screaming with a pole through his shoulder and his leg twisted at a funny angle. Blood had started to flow in mini-waterfalls down the stairs.
Charlie started to quiet down, his hands were as white as his face now.
“No! Aw, shit! Hold on Charlie!” Tim tried again and again. “C’mon! Come ON! Stay with me Charlie!” Charlie closed his eyes for a couple seconds, he clenched his left hand and his head lolled back and he looked up at Tim.
He opened his mouth slowly, a trickle of blood flowed out of the corner, “…Tim…”
“No! No, shut up! You’re not going to die here!”
Charlie’s eyes closed again, then opened slowly, “Save…them…Vault…help…don’t…” Each word came out slower than the last, until the last one ended in a gurgle and Charlie’s head fell to rest on the steps.
“Charlie… God dammit, man! C’mon!” Richard stood at the bottom of the steps watching Tim lean over Charlie’s body, wondering if, maybe, he should say something. Then, Tim stood up, wiped his good arm across his eyes and walked down the steps to Richard, “They’re gonna pay for that one. Oh, fuck, are they going to pay!”
“Uh…who was Charlie?” Richard asked him cautiously. Tim stared past Richard. He sucked in his breath and said, “Dr. Charlie Clarence Francis, head of advanced neural-regenisis. In personal terms,” He started walking down the next flight, “My brother.”
Richard knew this was not a subject to continue. He started after him.
The door on level 30 required another code. Tim wordlessly typed it in and the door opened. They slipped out of the tiny hallway and into the main one, where only the main elevator faced a long, tall, and narrow hallway. They walked down the hallway, side-by-side. Richard kept sneaking glances up at Tim, only to see that determined and hard look a man gets after a tragedy, and hoped he’d never have to put that face on himself.
The lights suddenly went out. Only the guide lights along the floor marked where they needed to go. Richard stopped in his tracks, only to be yanked back into walking by Tim’s strong hand on his arm, “Don’t worry, kid. This is standard emergency protocol for the control centre.” Tim’s face was still hard.
Suddenly, two huge lights flashed directly at them. Richard put his hands up in front of him and Tim stopped walking. “Relax, Overseer! I’m Tim Francis of the Vault Guard. This is Richard Walski, a resourceful citizen.”
“Why are you here?” A tired voice growled from behind the lights of the Overseer’s platform.
“We’ve come to help.”
“Turn back and hide.” The lights went out on the Overseer’s platform and the main lights came back on, “There’s no hope left for Vault 10.”

 

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Richard Walski's Story Chapter 4: Overseer Edmund Fly

Vault 10, control centre. Overseer Edmund Fly sits in the Overseer’s platform. In front of him stand a young Vault citizen with a gun and a determined guard with a bloody arm. Around him, security monitors of upper floors begin to bear the dire news of what the new monsters are capable of.


“Mr. Overseer! No! We can save the Vault!” Richard was pleading with the Overseer, “This hallway is perfect, it…”
“No!” Edmund put his hand up as to motion Richard to silence his voice, “Don’t think we haven’t already theorized on ways to kill these…these things!”
A voice crackled on over the Overseer’s platform’s speakers, “Control! Control! This is room 24 of level 6! We’ve locked down as the alarm said to, but, I don’t think its working! We heard screams through the wall just now! We need help!” A bass filled thump distorted the voice, “Oh god! They’re going to break through the door! Help us! Someone, please!!”
Edmund spoke loudly above the voice, “You see? These will not be stopped! They are going to come through each level and kill everyone!”
“Please respond, control! Send help!” A loud screeching distorted the sound again, followed by a deep growl, “OH MY GOD!! IT’S IN HERE!! HEEEELLLLPPP!!” The rest of the transmission was distorted by the screams of Vault citizens until it finally cut off.
Richard stood frozen; he stared at the monitors around the control centre. Most were showing empty hallways or huddling families. Only the first couple of banks showed gruesome scenes of past or present slaughter. Tim suddenly stepped forward.
“Overseer! You can’t expect people to willingly lock themselves in a room and wait for death!”
“They don’t know death is coming. They think they’re safe for now, that the guards will have this handled. It’s better that they think that way.” The Overseer sighed sadly, “If there was a sure fire way to kill them, I would’ve done it in a heart beat. But, it looks like they’d kill the entire population of the Vault before they’d get down here. How could the designers be so stupid?! The Vault defences do NOTHING down here!” He slammed his fist on the control panel of the platform. “Damn you, Vault-Tec!”
Tim still silently stared at the Overseer, his forehead wrinkled. He was trying to think of something, anything!
Richard spoke up, “We can lure them down!”
The Overseer looked at Richard. He spoke slowly, “What?”
“They come after sounds! When I ran into Tim, one was chasing his br…” Richard stopped and looked at Tim. He nodded. Richard looked back at the Overseer, “It was chasing his brother down the stairs and it was skipping every door around it! It was chasing the sound of him running! If we get everyone who is still on a safe level to come down here and hide, we can kill all of the monsters in this hallway! There are bigger guns down here, right?”
The Overseer sighed, the lights, some 20 feet above them, made his creased brow cast a shadow over his eyes. His white hair shined in the light, the gel he slicked it back with was gleaming. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “You don’t get it, boy. I’ve made a mistake, a grave mistake. We should have never opened the Vault. The world is not safe yet!”
“And you think if we waited any longer, it would have become safer?!” Tim broke the mask of a face he was wearing. He was angry, “Overseer! This would have only gotten worse! For all we know, this could be the least of our worries in our world today!”
“This IS our world!” The Overseer violently threw his arms into the air, gesturing to the entirety of the Vault, “We are strangers to the surface! We could’ve lasted here for a hundred more years at most! Our communications may not reach the supplied frequency, but that does NOT mean that they aren’t waiting to give us the all clear! Unfortunately, the simulations we ran didn’t take into account the…extent of the mutations that we bear horrific witness to today!”
The Overseer bowed his head and lowered his voice, “Like a fool, I assumed it would be safe enough for us to go out and start our new lives. Instead,” Edmund let out a long breath and looked up with a grim expression, “I signed each and every one of our death warrants.”
“Then we’ve got nothing to lose!” Tim started forward. A hiss issued from the sides of the Overseer’s platform as two panels opened and twin miniguns slid out. Tim stopped dead.
“Go back, Mr. Francis. There’s no hope for you here.”
“Overseer…” Tim growled. The platform’s hydraulics lifted it into an angle appropriate for aiming the miniguns directly at Tim.
“I said leave.”
“What’s the point?” Richard finally said. The Overseer didn’t acknowledge him. “Why should we leave? There’s a whole bunch of big guns here that might be able to kill them! That’s stupid!”
The Overseer turned the platform to Richard. “I will NOT be doubly responsible for everyone’s death! I’ve already condemned them to die with their loved ones; I’m not going to force them to watch everyone die around them as well! Now leave!”
“No! We can get everyone down here and kill the monsters in this hallway! We can die hiding or die fighting! I don’t think it’s going to make a difference!” Richard was advancing on the platform now, “We might even win against them! Some of us might live through this!”
The Overseer kept the miniguns on Richard as he advanced, but did nothing. Richard stopped 20 feet from the platform’s base, looking up at the Overseer’s face. Edmund just stared at Richard, then typed something into the platform’s interface. The platform returned to its original position, the miniguns still at ready. The announcers voice came over the Overseer’s platform speakers.
“Total Vault casualties: 462 dispersed throughout levels 1 to 7, 28, 29, and 30. Levels 1 to 5 and 7 are in automatic lockdown. Level 6 is in manual lockdown and can not be deactivated from this location. Simulations predict that complete casualties will result in levels 8 and 9 within the next 14 minutes. Possibility of error in this prediction: 67%.”
“Ok,” The Overseer said and looked down at Richard. “There is a small chance that you can save the other Vault Dwellers, but you’ll have to forget about those last two levels. They’ll only attract unwanted attention too soon.”
“So you’ll help us?”
“You’re the ones responsible for them now. Mr. Walski, Mr. Francis, god help you.”
With that, Overseer Edmund Regis Fly put a Vault pistol to his head and pulled the trigger.

 

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Richard Walski's Story Chapter 5: To Save the Vault

Vault 10, level 30. The blood of former Overseer Edmund Fly is speckled on 5 security monitors to the left of the Overseer’s platform. His body is slumped over the left side of the platform’s control panel as the blood drips 7 feet to the floor. The newly “appointed” Overseers stand stunned in front of the platform.



Tim and Richard stood stunned as the blast of the pistol echoed throughout the control centre. Tim got over the initial shock quickly and made his way over to the Overseer’s platform. He climbed up an emergency ladder on the side and pulled himself over the side. With little effort, he flipped Edmund’s body over the side of the platform. It spun to the ground like a rag doll and landed in a sprawled position in the puddle of blood. Richard’s shock was renewed.

Tim sat down in the poly seat and said down to Richard, “Wipe that look off of your face, kid. This won’t be the last body you see today, and it’ll probably be amongst the easiest to look at.”

Richard tried to shake it off, but the memory of the Overseer’s blank eyes staring, even as he hit the steel panels on the floor, still haunted him. He sprinted as best he could with his shaking legs and hauled himself up onto the side of the platform. Tim was studying the panels and hitting buttons to change most of the monitors around the room to level 6 to 10 security cameras. The monsters on level 6 were barely scavenging on non-recognizable shreds scattered about the ground. Level 8 was in full chaos and Richard tried his best not to look at those ones. Level 9 was only storage, but there were at least 100 people hiding amongst the crates and shelves.

Level 10, which was the first garden level was pretty much empty. Tim looked those monitors over and switched some more to Level 11. More empty garden.

“Looks like those levels should give us some time. We’ve got to inform levels 12 and on.” Tim said with no emotion. Richard jumped a little at the sudden break in the silence, then he looked confused, “What happened to the sound? Remember the call earlier?”

“Yeah, uh…hold on.” Tim looked around the panel, tracing the lines with his finger. He stopped on a section of the panel clearly marked “AUDIO”. “Ok, let’s try this.” He hit “0” and “8” on the key pad. The screen beside it read “Level 08: Incoming Transmissions: Disabled, Security Microphones: Disabled.” Tim typed the screen name (D4) and hit the “CHNG LINE” key. He changed the “Incoming Transmissions” line (001) from Disabled to Enabled. The screen flashed as the display was refreshed.

The speakers crackled on, issuing forth incoherent yells, roars and crashing noises.

“We must have a lot of transmissions coming through.” He quickly changed the line back to Disabled, and the speakers snapped off. Richard paled again and looked over at the monitors in time to see a younger man trying to fend off one of the monsters with a steel table leg. The monster deftly dodged the first two swings then charged forward to gore the man with its curved horns. Richard looked away quickly to avoid watching the man desperately trying to pull the horn from his chest before the beast threw him across the room. Richard let out a small sniff.

Tim looked over his shoulder at the boy. He saw the 13 year old staring at the floor of the platform, his shoulders shivering and heaving a little, and his knuckles, whit from clutching the side of the platform. Tim let his hard face slip and took on a more pitying look. Christ, the kid’s been through a hell of a lot. He hasn’t even begun his life yet, Tim thought.

Tim put on his best encouraging smile and turned to stand in front of the chair. He lifted up Richard by his forearms and dragged him over the edge and into the seat. Richard looked up at Tim’s new face, confused.

“Rich, I know this has been a living hell for you. It’s been a hell for all of us. But we need you to help us to put an end to it.” Tim turned and looked at the bank of computers with the thinly dispersed spatters of the Overseer’s blood on it, 4 of the monitors showing equally bloody black and white images of the grisly deaths of more Vault dwellers, “Rich, you need to tell em what needs to be done to save Vault 10.” With that, Tim leaned forward and switched the Audio screen to microphone. The screen flashed and read, “Announcement to all levels ready. To make announcement, use the microphone toggle switch. To change desired levels to air announcement on, enter the level numbers in on the keypad.” Tim moved his hand to the keypad and pressed 1, 2, ENTER, 1, 3, ENTER, etc. After all of the levels below level 12 were entered into the screen, Tim turned his head to Richard, “Tell em what needs to be done, Rich.”

Richard took a deep breath and tried to shake off the images in his head. He nodded. A small microphone protruded out of the control panel in front of him. He grabbed it and extended the telescoping rod to a comfortable height. For a minute, he just stared at the switch, a tear rolling down his cheek. To his right, one of the screens flashed brightly and changed to static.

Richard looked over at it. His eyes regained their old shine. He straightened up in the Overseer’s chair and wiped the tear away. With one final sniff, Richard flipped the microphone switch.

A slight bit of feedback issued from the speakers above, then it cleared. The speakers now broadcasted the quiet hum of the control centre and Richard’s breaths. He leaned forward.

“Vault 10. This is Richard Walski. You are all already aware that a threat has enter the Vault and are probably hiding as the warning announcement said. I have to tell you that we are all in trouble right now. I need everyone to be calm about this and do not panic! This new threat may be dangerous, but it isn’t invincible. Together, we are going to save as much of Vault 10 as humanly possible!” Richard cleared his throat. Tim glanced over at the monitors and saw some of the families looking up at the speakers now.

“In order to do this, I need every Vault dweller in earshot of this announcement to come down to level 30, now! The main elevator is broken and locked on level 29. The stairs are broken except from 29 to 30. Every elevator has some sort of route to be taken to level 29. Elevator A and B both stop at 29. If the elevator is not there when you get to it, take another one and go as far down as you can. Each elevator has a weight capacity of…” Richard covered the microphone and looked at Tim.

Tim smiled, “3600 pounds.”

“How many people is that?”

Tim thought for a second, then said, “About 30, 35 at best. You can only really get 30 in there if you really pack em in.”

Richard took his hand off of the microphone, “3600 pounds. That’s only about 30 people, but there are 16 running elevators, so please try and make this fast! People unfit to fire light or heavy weaponry will have to hide in the utility warehouse behind the control centre! We will help! There are large enough weapons to easily shred these things to bits! Please, come down and help, and make it as fast and as organized as possible!”

“Thank you for listening, Vault 10. We will protect our home today, and make sure that we get to step outside that door one day!”

Richard switched the switch to off and sat back further in the chair. Tim looked at Richard with his encouraging smile still on, “That was perfect Richard.” He patted him on the shoulder, “I’m going to find those guns. You make sure you find a trained volunteer for the platform.” With that, Tim crawled over the side and down the ladder. He picked up the Overseer’s body and dragged over to the utility warehouse, where the weapons were stored along with all of the spare parts for the control centre.

From the main hallway came the hollow thump of the stair door opening, and the first Vault dwellers made their way into the control centre.

“What now?” Asked the woman in lead.

Richard looked down at them, “We save the Vault.”

(Sorry about the sucky format of the last two...put up some comments! Let me know what you think!)

 

[DirtyDreamDesigner]

Really good read. Keep it up!

 

[Frontball13]

Richard Walski's Story Chapter 6: "This is Our Stand!"

Vault 10, control centre. Richard sits in the Overseer’s platform as the frightened Vault dwellers steadily make their way into the room. Tim hides the body of the Overseer amongst some old monitors in the utility warehouse and begins to bring weapons out to the Vault dwellers. Their last stand is in the making.



“Listen, everyone!” Richard was standing in the platform and raising his hands in the air to attract everyone’s attention. The fact that a boy as young as Richard was holding a gun drew attention to him just as quickly. They stopped the nervous chatter, “I need everyone who can’t hold and shoot a weapon to go into the utility warehouse! That’s everyone who CAN’T, not won’t, can’t!”

Most of the Vault dwellers began to move toward the double doors at the back of the huge control centre. Smaller women, children, the elderly, and many scientists.

“Wait!” Everyone stopped suddenly and looked around frantically. Everyone’s nerves were still on edge. Richard pointed at a particularly large mass of about 40 scientists, “I need some people who are trained in the Vault computer systems, and one who knows how to use this!” Richard pointed to the control panel on the platform.

Almost every scientist in the room went to huddle around the base of the platform. A few gasped at the sight of the blood, but the thought that if they bailed now, it would be their blood on the ground prevented them from panicking. One climbed up the ladder to Richard, “I can run this.”

“What’s your name?”

“Tom Grannelle” The man had a full head of wavy black hair and wore small round spectacles on the end of his somewhat large nose, “I was on the list for the next Overseer, and they trained me on all of the platform’s functions.”

“Alright, you’ll be running this when they come.” Richard stepped aside from in front of the seat and let Tom sit. Some of the scientists and nearby Vault dwellers paled at what Richard said. A balding scientist with a specially designed monocle for magnifying small parts during repair began to stutter, “T-t-those things a-are coming d-d-down here?”

“That’s the plan.” Richard turned to the rest of the crowd, “Spread the word, people! The others coming in didn’t hear what I said!” People hastily began repeating what he had told them earlier to newcomers. People began flowing again, into the utility warehouse. Tim pushed his way out through the people, holding a collection of semi-machine guns, “I need volunteers to help haul out more weapons and ammo! C’mon! You don’t want them here before we’re ready!” The people not planning on hiding began to file into the utility warehouse with Tim, who left he SMG’s in a pile by the door.

Richard climbed down the ladder on the side of the platform. As he stepped off onto the floor, his 4 friends from the garden pushed through the crowd to get to him.

“Richard!” The small boy yelled as he saw him through the mass of people. Richard turned, “Hey!”

The boys came out into the space by the base of the platform and began all talking at once.

“Oh, man! I thought you were dead!”

“Did you see the monsters?”

“How did you get clearance to get in here?”

“You know how to work the Overseer’s platform? You sat in his chair?”

“Where’s the Overseer?”

“Ok, guys! Shut up a second!” The boys all stopped, but by the looks of their eyes, Richard could tell that those questions were only the tip of an iceberg of questions each of them had for him, “Listen you guys, you need to get into the utility warehouse.”

“Yeah, we know.”

“I think it was like 50 people who told us when we got here.”

“Did you know there’s a dead guy in the stairwell? A post right through him!”

“Guys!” Richard was almost impatient having to deal with people his own age again. “You have to get to the utility warehouse, now!” They all drew back, a bit of a hurt look in their eyes, “Listen, I’m REALLY sorry about this, but we are in SERIOUS trouble! I need to get these people organized! You all understand? I’ll tell you ALL about how it went when we kill off the things.”

At his last sentence, some of the boys smiled. Perfect, Richard thought, I’m getting pretty good at this comfort thing! They set off. Richard went around the platform and to the group of slightly confused scientists.

“Ok, you guys.” The scientists all focused their attention on him, “I need you guys to get to the security stations in here and activate as many defences in this room as we have room for. Uh, I know I’m not cleared for this, but, do you guys know of any…scientific kinda weapons?”

About 5 of the scientists came forward. The one with the monocle spoke up, “Level 29 has the high security storage warehouse, to which we have clearance. There are about 3 tested energy weapons there and about 5 experimental. I think it’s 3 of them that shouldn’t be used.” He looked at the scientist to his left, “3, right?”

“Actually, it’s probably 4, the plasma charged neutron gun. Remember how the last prototype cut a hole through the wall and then burned off Harry’s hands?”

“He doesn’t have clearance, Ted!”

“Shut up! Would you rather Frank here forgot about that and brought it down to burn us all up?”

The scientist this was directed at shrank back.

“Oh…uh, cool.” Richard shook his head and assumed his authoritative voice again, “Ok, you guys have to go get those. Bring some stronger people if you need them.”

The scientists nodded and made their way toward the hallway. People were beginning to build up again. Richard climbed up the platform, “Keep spreading the word!!” He yelled. Once again, people started moving again. This HAS to be almost everyone, Richard thought, but more people were steadily making their way through the hallway, including a group of medical scientists, who were carrying something.

“Oh **** Richard said. Tom turned and looked at Richard.

“What?”

“Uh, nothing!” He climbed back down the ladder and ran for the utility warehouse. He pushed his way inside and ran down the aisles. At least these people have the sense to move to the back, he thought. He found the weapons area at aisle 34, section D. There, Tim was handing riot shotguns and assault rifles to about 15 men and women.

“Tim! Tim!” Richard yelled as he ran.

“What is it, Rich!” Tim looked at Richard, hoping to god that the monsters weren’t already here.

“Some medical scientists,” Richard gasped a little for breath, 34 aisles was a long way to run, “They came in. They were carrying…” He sucked in air again, “I think they cut your brother off the pole!”

Tim’s face went grim for a second, then he cleared it, “Richard, that’s not as important as getting the people ready! Go back out there!”

Richard looked confused for a second, then though how stupid he must look. He nodded and started to jog back.

“Rich!” Richard turned and looked back at Tim. “Tell them to bring him to me.” Richard nodded and ran back to the doors. He caught the scientists at aisle 10. They nodded at his instructions and made their way toward where Richard had told them.

Richard ran back out to the platform and found, to his relief, that people had begun to try o lay out their own strategic shooting line. He was about to climb the platform when he heard, “Richard!” He looked behind them and saw his parents separate themselves from the now very organized line of people, being sorted and regulated by a group of guards.

He let go of the ladder and ran to them, letting himself be crushed in their embrace.

His dad was the first to speak, “Richard! How did you do this? I knew that you were bright, but to organize all these people?” Richard began to flush a little. It was always a bit tough for him to take his parent’s praise with dignity.

His mom cut in, “Oh, my little boy! Are you hurt at all?”

“Mom! Thanks, dad, but you guys have got to get to safety!”

“Ok, son. Never thought I’d see the day that you told ME what to do. Good luck!”

“We love you, honey!” With that, they re-entered the line and were obscured from sight.

“Hey, you guys in front! Step back!” One of the scientists at the computer banks shouted. The crowd did as it was told, halting the line for a minute. The tiles on either side of the entrance lifted above the floor, revealing two large turrets. The crowd stared at it in awe, before deciding it was safe to keep moving. Some of the armed Vault dwellers climbed on top of the turrets for a better vantage point. The line of incoming people was beginning to dwindle in size, but increase in speed. The newest arrivals had a look of terror in their eyes.

Richard climbed the platform again, “Tom, can you make this thing give a status report again?” Tom nodded and typed something into the main keyboard. The speakers on the platform crackled on.

“Levels 1 to 5 and 7 to 11 are in lockdown. Level 6 is in manual lockdown and can not be disabled from this location. Casualties detected on levels 1 to 11, 13, 29 and 30. Garden water pumps A through to D are malfunctioning. Flooding on level 11. Main elevator is out of service.” The voice cut out.

Richard patted Tom on the shoulder, “Thanks.” As he turned to leave, there was a bass filled thump that resonated throughout the control centre. The terror filled people began to run, while the others paused. The platform speakers crackled on again, “Elevator C has fallen and did not activate its brakes in time to avoid impact.” It snapped off again. The Vault dwellers all began to move a little faster.

The scientists with 4 other larger Vault dwellers came jogging down the hallway with 4 good sized crates between them. “We’ve got them Richard, they need to be set up high and on tripods, so we’ll put them on the second level of monitor banks!”

“That’s perfect! Guards!” They looked at Richard, “I need one of you to go and get Tim! Tell him that they’re nearly here!” A woman with large shoulders and short hair nodded and ran into the utility warehouse. The line of Vault dwellers was about finished, only a few people were running down the hallway.

Richard suddenly remembered. He raised himself high on the ladder, “Everyone! You are using guns in here! Please remember to use the Vault issued ear plugs! If you don’t have any…uh, someone run and get more from the warehouse!” Another guard immediately ran to the doors. Another thump issued from around them, and the speakers informed them that elevator E had fallen and elevator G had managed to brake. Tim ran out of the warehouse with an assault rifle in his hands.

Richard climbed down and went to him, “Are we ready?”

Tim nodded, “Pretty much.”

“Ok, everybody!” The Vault dwellers on and around the monitor banks, the turrets and the floor in front of the platform turned to him, the room fell silent. Richard cleared his throat, “The monsters will be here any moment! We are ready for them! I KNOW we can kill ALL of them! Are you all ready?” The Vault dwellers around him let out a cheer so loud that it could have been heard on level 20. Richard raised his hands and halted the cheer, “Vault 10 will not fall today! We will live to set foot outside!”

A screeching noise issued from the main elevator. Everyone turned to look. The sound echoed throughout the semicircle shaped room. It got louder and louder until, with a ear blowing crash, the Vault 10 symbol bent forward and twisted metal poked through a slit in the opening. Several grunting noises came from within.

“This is it everybody, earplugs in!” A rustling about the room replaced the eerie silence.

Tom moved the platform into position. Richard turned toward the hallway, “This is our stand!” He yelled.

 

[Frontball13]

Richard Walski's Story Chapter 7: Vault 10's Fury

Vault 10, control centre. 653 Vault dwellers stand ready all over the room, assault rifles, semi-machine guns, and riot shotguns loaded with slug shells. 4 scientists have set up 4 unique weapons, a hum issues from each one. Tim and Richard stand in front of the utility warehouse doors, which house the other 725 Vault dwellers. From the main elevator down the large hallway come the growls of Vault 10’s fate.

“Safeties off!” Tim yelled to the Vault dwellers all over the room and on the computer banks. A series of clicks echoed all through the room. The scientists finished preparations on their weapons and the hum from each intensified. One such weapon, that looked like a box covered in vents and wires with a long barrel that was forked at the end, began to glow through the vents.

“Here, Rich.” Tim handed Richard an SMG, “Probably better than that bent up pistol of mine” Tim went over to the ladder on the Overseer’s platform, and turned back to Richard, who was looking over the large handgun, “Comin’ for a front row seat?” Richard looked up and nodded. He climbed up the ladder after Tim.

Richard braced himself across the round side of the platform. He propped the SMG up against his shoulder and checked across the platform to see how Tim was positioned. Tim was standing with one foot on the front of the platform and had the assault rifle aimed at the elevator. Richard got up on his knees to make another announcement.

“You guys, working the turrets, we fire when you do! Everyone else, don’t hit each other! Almost none of you have shot a gun before, so aim FAR away from any of your fellow Vault dwellers! Good luck!”

A loud, hollow clang came from the main hallway, and a loud shuffle filled the room as all with a view of the elevator brought their weapons to the ready position.

“This is it. C’mon, let it work!” Richard said to himself. The platform moved upward under him, aiming at the elevator doors, which were beginning to part further and further.

Another grunt echoed down the hallway as 8 long fingers with long, black claws on the ends reached out of the opening and gripped the doors. With a strained roar, the creature pushed the doors apart, bending the steel aside and creating a crater-shaped hole. The creature inside breathed out a cloud of steam (the Vault temperature was slightly below room temperature, but these things were obviously getting a workout) and eyed the crowd at the end of the hallway. It grunted a couple times and cautiously climbed through the opening, moving in the same manner that a gorilla moves.

It sat at the end of the hallway, it’s orange skin was blotched with blood in places, especially on the front feet, which more resembled hands than feet. It cocked its head and sniffed.

Richard had a newly discovered sense of dread, as this was the first actual look that he had gotten at the size of these things. He wondered if the bullets would even cut these things. The only weakness he knew of was the light sensitivity they seemed to have. Richard perked up after that last thought. He turned to Tom, “I need you to lower the lights!” He whispered. Tom looked over at him with a questioning look.

“No time to explain! Do it!”

Tom gave him one last sideways glance and turned to the control panel. He found a dial on the small “LIGHTS” section of the panel and turned it from 7 to 2. The lights dimmed to a point where the monitors were providing most of the light in the room. The creature snorted and growled. It began to walk forward, the knuckles on its curled fists leaving bloody prints on the metal floor.

“Now, when I say so, turn on the platform’s lights. You know where that is?”

Tom nodded and placed his finger on the side of the “LIGHTS: PLATFORM” switch. The creature was about 20 feet from the turrets and the people on top of them were getting nervous.

“NOW! TURRETS! FIRE!”

The lights on the front of the platform flooded the hallway in light. The creature gave a howl of surprise and stumbled back, one clawed hand over its face. The turrets began firing assault rifle rounds at the howling giant. Everyone else close to it opened fire, most hitting it with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

The bullets began to pierce into the creature’s body, shredding it’s skin to pieces. The creature let out a thunderous roar and charged the turrets. One of the experimental weapons revved up to a high pitched whine and produced a 2 foot long, green laser beam that flew between the turrets and incinerated the left shoulder of the charging behemoth. The arm lost all foundation and crumpled when the extreme weight of the monster was shifted to it, sending the creature onto its side on the floor.

The men and women on the turrets took advantage of this moment of weakness and pumped bullets into its exposed neck. The creatures howls grew raspy as the flesh around its gullet was torn away and blood spewed out. The creature’s flailing limbs slowed to a twitch. The Vault dwellers began to cheer.

Richard let a sigh of relief go. Then he realized that that was only one!

“Everyone! Stop cheering! There’s more than one!” At that, two more monsters pushed their way through the hole in the elevator door, widening the already 6 foot wide opening. The turrets began firing again and knocked one of the creatures up against the wall beside the door before it regained its balance and charged forward. Above the gunfire from the frontline, the Vault dwellers could feel the bass of the roars in their chests. 3 holes appeared above the elevator doors formed as another creature climbed down the elevator shaft. Two more monsters forced their way through the door with more piling up behind them.

All 4 of the experimental weapons were going through the final preparations for heavy usage, the humming from each cycled up to a whine and the 3 tested weapons began to glow through their vents.

Tim was firing in quick bursts at the monsters as they charged forward, maintaining his balance as the platform twitched back and forth. Richard was trying his best to fire between the turrets, but the bursts from the SMG were too much for him to hold. That, and the light issuing from the platform’s miniguns as they blazed was blinding in the dim light.

The experimental weapons began to fire. A green laser shot and a red laser shot flew between the turrets. The green one hit one of the creature in the side of its face, melting it off and exposing the brain within. That monster dropped to the ground twitching. The red beam cut through a creature’s arm and another’s leg before hitting the floor and melting one tile. Neither monster faltered in its charge.

The 3 holes above the elevator became 4 as more claws appeared and tore a gash in the metal. The creature peeled the metal aside until the hole was big enough to climb through. Still more monsters piled through the elevator. A crash echoed from the hallway as another creature smashed through the stair access door. The hallway was now packed with thrashing monsters and the first were reaching the turrets.

A stream of blue light streaked toward the mass of monsters. It reached the creatures and threw them back onto the others, melting their skin and fusing muscle tissues together. The stream continued and the scientist swept it across the mass of orange beasts.

Another weapon sat beside that one. This device looked like a spherical assembly of metal panels with what seemed to be a satellite dish mounted on the front. The scientist behind that one twisted a couple of dials and pulled out what looked like a long, thin drawer. He inserted a glowing tube of an unidentifiable substance and pushed the drawer back in. He then aimed the device at the mass of monsters and pulled a lever out of the device and back toward him. If anyone had been looking at it, they would have seen the light around the dish bend into a sphere of displacement. The dish began to glow and flashed as it propelled the sphere toward the creatures. It collided with the lead creatures, still recovering from the laser sweep, and literally dissolved the first 10 monsters in the pack.

Most of the firing stopped as the Vault dwellers stood in awe of the weapons power. Richard looked at Tom, his eyes huge. Tom seemed to not be phased by this and resumed the platform’s rain of death on the monsters, who were now howling with rage. The monsters outside of the super-weapon’s blast radius were charging with a zeal so fearsome that some of the Vault dwellers were abandoning the turrets as a vantage point.

Two creatures made a leap into the gunfire of the turrets and dug their claws deep into the barrels of one of them, essentially rendering the guns useless. The other turret resumed fire while Tom had to steer the platform’s fire towards the creatures further back.

Richard saw this as a terribly crippling obstruction to the firepower from within the control centre. He climbed down the ladder and ran to the scientist controlling the disabled turret. He had to yell right beside his ear in order to get the man to hear him above the gunfire.

“Lower the broken turret! I’ll get the people off of it!” The scientist nodded and prepared the descending mechanism. Richard ran to the turret and yelled up to it. Of course, no one heard. The combined noise of the guns, the platform’s miniguns and the roar of the monsters was too much. The earplugs were barely enough to keep eardrums intact with this much noise. Richard climbed up the turret a small ways and pulled on the nearest Vault dwellers suit. The man whipped around with his gun pointed down at Richard, fear gripping him.

He relaxed when he saw Richard and understood his hand gestures to get off of the turret. The man began getting the attention of others and beckoning to them to climb off after him. People began to make their way towards the back of the floor held on top of the turret. The two monsters were still hacking at the front of the turret, ripping through the thick steel armour and tearing the guns clean off of it. One of them looked up in time to notice the Vault dwellers. It pushed itself upright and stood a full 10 feet high, its shoulders above the top of the turret. It gripped the edge with one hand and swung out at the now panicking citizens. It caught 4 people, knocking 2 off onto the floor and impaling the others on its claws.

A green flash shot by the few people left to jump off of the turret and melted away the creature’s forearm, dropping the rest on top of the turret still with the dying people on the claws. The creature roared and pulled itself on top of the turret with its remaining arm. It readied itself to leap onto the computer banks on which sat the weapon that robbed it of its arm. Blue flooded the room again as the other weapon cut in and sent the creature flying back into the advancing mass.

As before, the scientist operating the super-weapon loaded it up again and aimed into the middle of the hallway for maximum fatality. The light began to bend around the dish again, but the tone of the weapon’s hum changed to a rhythmic thrum. Richard felt the thrumming beats in his chest, as did everyone else in the room, and no one felt good about it. The scientist looked at the weapon’s control panel with confusion on his face. He attempted to adjust another dial.

Richard felt the thrumming speed up and slowly decrease in intensity until the vibrations in his chest were completely gone. He let out his breath in relief and began to make his way back to the Overseer’s platform’s ladder to reassume his vantage point.

Then the super-weapon exploded.

 

[Frontball13]

Richard Walski's Story Chapter 8: Vault 10 Falls

Vault 10, control centre. The monsters flow into the hallway in greater numbers than anyone could have anticipated. Around the room monitors display empty hallways and rooms. The 4 experimental weapons have succeeded in tipping the scales in the Vault’s favour, especially the sonic neutron gun. Now, the neutron gun’s core has collapsed in on itself. The blast consumes 8 monitor banks, the blue laser weapon, and 78 Vault dwellers.

Richard was thrown back by the explosion that turned the whole room nearly white for a split second. The creatures all began to retreat in startled confusion and piled up on each other at the elevator. The explosion itself grew slowly outward, consuming monitor banks and Vault dwellers alike. The other experimental weapon was consumed and must have caused a reaction because, as soon as it was sucked in, the fireball rapidly condensed to a small sphere and violently exploded. This sent debris in every direction, most notably the remaining walkway.

The twisted chunk of corrugated steel (probably the size of one of the monsters) flew straight at the Overseer’s platform. Tim managed to regain enough of his bearings to jump off the side before the chunk of steel made contact. Tom hadn’t had time to notice.

The steel smashed into the side of the platform crushing the entire side. If the platform had been down in the resting position instead of up in its flexible combat mode, that would have been all of the damage. Instead, the platform snapped off of its hydraulics like a twig from a dead maple and spun into the bank of terminals across from where the explosion took place, killing 20 more Vault dwellers and smashing the control station for the remaining turret.

All gunfire stopped as the Vault dwellers looked in despair at the crater in the monitor banks on the left side of the room. It was dark in the room now, the lights that were illuminating the hallway were now jammed into the computer banks on the right side of the control centre. Richard finally regained his senses and found himself underneath one of the computer banks, trapped amongst the cables by a monitor case from the other side of room. His one leg was tangled in the cables and the monitor kept him from bending to untangle the cables. He had a fairly good view of the room from under there, however, and saw the monsters charging back from the elevator, breaking the silence after the explosion with their roaring.

Richard saw Tim get up from the floor and yell for everyone to keep shooting. The people on the turret that had just lost its controller were jumping off and running across the room for a safer vantage point. The gunfire commenced again. The scientists were attempting to speed up the reloading process on the lasers by raising the wattage. The lasers were now firing every 15 seconds, but heating up fast.

The monsters charged the turrets first, apparently convinced that they would eventually resume attacking them. 4 busied themselves on tearing the turrets to pieces while 2 more pushed past them. The lasers stopped those two, disintegrating one’s chest and ultimately its heart and the other cut straight through the other creature’s brain.

The first turret was suddenly torn from its foundation as one of the monsters twisted it off and threw it across the room where it slammed into the utility warehouse doors, hiding them from sight. Tim yelled something to the fleeing Vault dwellers that Richard couldn’t understand, but they nodded to him and ran to the nearest scientist. They formed a protective ring around him as one of them told him something. The scientist turned to his control panel and started typing frantically.

Vault-Tec must’ve installed a defensive measure in the turrets as a last resort. As a result of the scientist’s actions, the remaining turret’s front end exploded. No debris flew into the control centre, but 3 more creatures were shredded to pieces. The lasers continued to wound or kill monsters in the oncoming wave, but still more were pouring in.

Richard estimated, from what he saw before he ended up under the monitor banks, that they had killed about 25 of them and probably crippled a few more to the point of a loss of mobility. The remaining functional lights in the room turned back to bright, probably as a result of the scientist’s actions on the computer. Only about 4 remained, out of the original 20. The shockwave from the explosion had shattered the bulbs. This cast light mostly on the wreck of the Overseer’s platform and random fires illuminated the other side.

The creatures, now advancing far faster than the weapons could push them back, began to make their way into the room. Richard knew that they’d win over the gunfire in here easily, but the wreck covering the doors might give the others time to formulate a plan to kill the rest.

I’ve done my part, he thought to himself. He looked over at the ring of people protecting the scientist as 2 monsters charged it, barely flinching at the bullets that tore their leathery skin to pieces. The circle dispersed as they got closer, leaving the typing scientist exposed. A creature dived and crushed the scientist against the computer. The creature proceeded to climb the bank and sweep Vault dwellers off of the second level of monitor banks.

The lasers took down another monster and cut through the tail of another. The monsters continued to pour in and slaughter more of the defenders. Richard was sure that they’d clear out the minute they killed everyone they could see or smell in the room and leave the hidden doors alone.

Tim and another Vault dweller positioned themselves on the ruins of the monitor banks beside the crater, trying to use a primitive fear of fire to their advantage. They were aiming with precision, picking off eyes in any creature they could. They succeeded in half-blinding 4 of them (it would have been easier if the eyes were both on the front, rather than the sides) before attracting the attention of more. The injured monsters roared and charged the two men, along with 2 more relatively unharmed creatures.

Tim and the other man stood no chance against the rage of these monsters. Tim tried to dodge the sweeping claw of the first monster, but his leg was snagged by its claws. He yelled as he was smashed against the monitors once before the monster lunged and crushed his chest in its teeth. The other Vault dweller was successful in his dodge, but fell off of the side of the crater and landed in the sparking electric conduits. A bright light flashed from the hole as he was electrocuted to a crisp.

Richard closed his eyes, not wanting to watch Tim’s remains being consumed. A huge thump nearby forced him to open his eyes. He saw the foot of one of the monsters in front of him before it lifted up as the creature climbed onto the monitor bank. The equipment above Richard began to sink down. Even though he still had a foot of space above him, he still panicked. He tried his hardest not to yell for help, mostly because it would either not come, or bring the wrong rescuers.

The monsters had killed almost all of the Vault dwellers in the room now. Richard only heard a few shots firing off. The equipment above him lifted back up as the monster above climbed off and made its way to some bodies on the other side of the room. Richard found that he could move the monitor in front of him, but he kept still. He didn’t want to get the attention of the creatures that had just killed the last Vault dwellers defending the room.

He reminded himself that all wasn’t lost yet. The Vault dwellers in the utility warehouse were still safe as long as the monsters didn’t find the door. Blood dripped down from the equipment above and landed on Richard’s temple. He struggled not to follow his instincts and push himself out of the way; the risk of making noise was too great in the now quiet room.

Suddenly, a noise from under the wrecked turret made all of the creatures in the room turn toward the back of the room. A woman ran out, yelling, “Oh my god! The Overseer’s body is in there! We f…” She cut off as she saw all of the monsters in the room staring at her. One of them roared and began charging. The woman screamed and ran back behind the turret.

No! No, please, Richard thought. Don’t let them get in there.

As if to show him that he was dead wrong, the monsters threw the turret aside and crashed through the doors. The newly arriving creatures didn’t even hesitate in the control centre and ran to follow the rest. Richard counted about 50 before the line stopped and the room fell dead silent, except for the crackling of the fire and electric snaps from the crater.

Richard pushed the monitor aside and freed his leg. He crawled out and stood in silence. The bodies and body parts of the Vault dwellers were strewn about the room. The room itself looked like a military force had come through. Richard noticed that the computer that the one scientist was working on was blinking a green cursor somewhere underneath the coating of blood and flesh that was left of the crushed man.

We walked over to it, taking time to look at the hallway that the monsters had come from. The floor was coated in bloody knuckle and foot prints and the elevator doorway was twice as wide as before. The hole above it was ripped a good 20 feet tall. When he got to the terminal, he wiped the screen clean with his hand, wiping his hand off on the leg of his Vault suit. The screen read, “ANNOUNCEMENTS: Change line: Status Report”. The scientist had managed to type “single cyc”. Richard typed in the “le” at the end and hit the ENTER button. The speakers above crackled on again.

“Warning! Vault 10 control centre severely damaged! Over half of Vault population has been terminated! Emergency status! Severe circuit shortages in the control centre! Automatic circuit break in 10 seconds! Fusion core at 100% efficiency! Circuit breaks will increase efficiency to 150%! Core explosion will occur within 5 minutes of circuit break unless manual core regulation measures are taken!”

Richard listened with increasing horror. If he remembered correctly, the core was just behind the utility warehouse. If the core exploded, it would destroy the warehouse completely, and probably the whole of level 30 and part of level 29.

The speakers crackled on again, “Emergency! Emergency! Core overload! Explosion in 5 minutes! All available scientists to level 30 for manual core regulation!” The warning lights once again began to flash red throughout the Vault. Richard frantically began searching the computers for any core related panels. He darted down the banks, hoping to god that the panel wasn’t under the Overseer’s platform or among those lost in the crater.

He finally came across one marked “FUSION CORE CONTROL”. He flicked the screen’s power switch to ON and looked at the screen beside it. It had only one line of text, “ENTER COMMAND” with the cursor blinking at the end. Richard tried typing in “manual core regulation“. The screen changed and read, “Command not possible. Take required steps before activating program.” Richard became frantic. What steps??

He typed “manual core regulation help“. The screen flashed again and read, “ENTER TOPIC”.

“Emergency! Emergency! Core overload! Explosion in 3 minutes! All available scientists to level 30 for manual core regulation!”

Richard typed “steps”. The screen flashed again. This time it had a paragraph of text, “To regulate core manually, lock circuit breakers on main power grid panel. Then, activate core axis magnets and adjust magnetic power to 8 on the level 30 specific power grid panel. After magnetic sensors have confirmed changes, activate the manual core regulation program and specify regulation in %.”

Richard quickly began darting to each panel again and found the main power grid panel. He typed “circuit breakers” into the command prompt. The screen flashed displaying a list of options, all numbered. Richard quickly skimmed through them and selected “6: Manual circuit breaker controls”. The screen changed to a list of 3 controls.

“Emergency! Emergency! Core overload! Explosion in 2 minutes! All available scientists to level 30 for manual core regulation!”

He typed “lock”. The screen flashed and displayed, “Circuit breakers locked”. Richard quickly ran to find the panel for the level 30 power grid. He found the level 1 and ran along them until he came to the edge of the crater.

“No!” Richard said aloud. He stood looking at half of the level 26 power grid panel. He shook his head again, “No!!”

“Emergency! Emergency! Core overload! Explosion in 1 minute! All available scientists to level 30 for manual core regulation!”

“Why?!?! No!!!” Richard was holding his head in his hands and sitting on the walkway. He began to cry, his hopelessness overwhelming him.

“Emergency! Emergency! Core overload! Explosion in 30 seconds! All available scientists to level 30 for manual core regulation!”

From the utility warehouse opening came faint screams echoing from deep within the warehouse. Richard just held himself and cried harder.

“Core explosion in 5...4...3...2...1...”

 

[Frontball13]

Richard Walski's Story Chapter 9: The Empty Shell

Vault 10, level 30. The main reactor of the Vault has overloaded. The core is growing in mass and is about to break the walls of the reactor. In the utility warehouse right next door to the reactor Vault dwellers are being mercilessly slaughtered by the savage monsters that invaded the Vault. Richard has done all he can, but blames himself for what is happening.


“Warning! Vault reactor core has surpassed control limits! Warning! Vau…” The voice cut out as all of the power in the Vault cut out. In the reactor, the fusion reaction within the reactor reached the reactor’s limits. The reactor tore open and the fire within consumed the melting remains of the reactor. In an instant, the explosion filled the room and consumed everything inside it. The wall between it and the utility warehouse began to bend in.

The Vault dwellers in the utility warehouse were plunged into complete darkness when the power cut out. The fleeing turned to blind chaos as people ran into shelves and each other alike. The monsters became disoriented, relying on locating the source of the smell of fear in the room.

The screaming and roaring was dominated by the deep groaning of bending steel. Those who were hiding away from the chaos looked around them to find the source. The entire back wall of the utility warehouse (100 yards wide and 30 feet high) began to warp. The tall shelves on that wall began to lean and some fell over, sending spare parts clattering across the floor.

Richard could hear the groaning from the control centre and stopped crying. He realized that the control centre might be consumed in the explosion as well. The fire still illuminated enough of the room for him to find his way to the elevator.

In the utility warehouse, small slivers of light began to shine through melting holes in the wall. Vault dwellers looked up as the holes got bigger. The creatures stood, mesmerized by the lights that shifted and grew on the wall. The wall bent further in and the Vault dwellers knew that whatever was making the light on the other side of that wall, it wasn’t good. One of the scientists knew EXACTLY what was behind that wall.

“Run! Everyone run!! The reactor core is exploding!”

The room filled with even more panic than before and the monsters snapped out of their mesmerized state and charged the crowd of people again. The wall suddenly gave way completely.

Richard ran around the corner into the darkness of the stairs-access corridor. He felt for the opening of the stairs in the darkness and gave up when he came within inches of impaling his own face on a steel rod. He turned around and walked back to the main hallway.

He stood, looking up the elevator shaft, making sure that there were no more monsters making their way down. Behind him, the groan of bending steel turned to a roar. He turned around and saw the opening of the utility warehouse become brighter and brighter until fire began to shoot straight out of the doorway. Richard ran back into the stairs-access corridor.

The fire from the utility warehouse shot straight through the control centre, melting the lonely column that once supported the Overseer’s platform. The stream of fire reached the elevator opening and began to incinerate the back wall of the shaft.

The intense heat of the flames forced Richard to go further down the corridor. He saw the steel rod that nearly killed him and moved by it to the hole in the wall that was once the door. The light from the stream of fire was enough for him to make out that the creatures had destroyed the stairway completely, giving him no escape.

The doorway to the utility warehouse was growing larger and so was the stream of fire. The heat was growing more intense in the corridor. Richard stumbled into the ruined staircase, finding it resembled more of a burrow than a shaft. He made his way to the furthest wall of the hole and stood with his back against the hall. He could see the heat rippling the air in the opening as the hallway outside grew brighter and the roar of the flames grew more intense.

The back wall of the control centre gave a final steely groan before the entire top of it tore away, bathing the ceiling in fire before the entire explosion collapsed back into the utility warehouse and gave one final shockwave before winking out of existence. The shockwave blew whatever steel remains of the shelves and walls to every corner of level 30.

Richard waited in the blackness of the stairwell as the roar of the explosion faded. The clanging of random pieces of steel falling throughout level 30 made Richard realize that he was probably the last living thing in the Vault.

A clunking came from under the control centre. This continued at a rhythmic pace until a loud crunching noise made the machine escalate to a whir. The remaining lights in the hallway flickered back on. The remaining speaker in the hallway turned on.

“Vault 10 is now operating on auxiliary power. Automatic assessment of circuits has activated breakers in corrupted areas. Unnecessary areas have also been deactivated. These areas include: power intensive experiments, test subject freezers, entertainment facilities, automated food preparation, automated security devices, waste recycling, and Vault suit dispensers. Current potential in use: 56%. Estimated time remaining until fission reactor runs out of uranium: 2.3 years.”

Richard walked out into the control centre. The back wall was bent outwards at the top and the entire ceiling was warped. The opening to the utility warehouse was twice as large as it once was. Richard looked inside and, with the dim light coming from the fire on the monitor banks and the hallway lights; he could see that almost all of the steel that once surrounded the utility warehouse had been consumed by the fusion reaction. Only rock that had hardened after melting was left.

Richard once again felt the pains of guilt for what he did. From behind him came a wheezing grunt. He looked behind him and saw one of the monsters attempting to crawl with one arm across the floor to him. Its other massive arm was twisted and burned and its legs were burned off. The orange skin of the beast was charred black in most places. It gave a tired growl at the sight of Richard staring at it.

Richard ran to one of the monitor banks and grabbed a blood covered riot shotgun and ran back to the monster.

“This is for everyone!” He yelled at it before pumping 16 shots into the creature’s head. Its skull cracked on the 4th shot and the other 12 turned its brains and throat to paste. Richard stood over the remains of the monster holding the shotgun. Looking at the mess in front of him, Richard realized that he wasn’t responsible for the death of the Vault dweller anymore than it was Tim’s fault for his brother’s death.

Richard wiped the tears off of his cheek with the back of his hand and marched toward the main elevator, shotgun still in his hands. He walked into the shaft and looked up. He could see light coming from the next floors elevator entrance, but that was a good 40 feet up.

Richard noticed that the creatures had made large holes in the walls that would make for easy climbing, since none of the creatures had the tendency to use the same spot twice for footing. He slung the shotgun over his back using the shoulder strap and climbed to level 29 with ease.

He pulled himself into the hallway and looked down the hall. This was the sub-control centre, used for the less important functions of the Vault, like security codes and food allocation. At the back of the room was the high security storage. This was mainly for high priority experiments and projects.

The floor was slightly heaved near the back where the explosion had breached the control centre. Richard wondered how much longer the utility warehouse and main reactor room would hold up. The explosion had to have weakened the structure.

This wasn’t where Richard wanted to be, anyway. He turned to the elevators, where only the main elevator, elevator A, and elevator B came. Richard pushed the call button.

“Main elevator out of service.” The speaker voiced before the doors to elevator A opened. Richard stepped in and pushed 13, his floor. The elevator brought him there uneventfully. Thank god for that, he thought. He stepped out into the empty hallway. The set up of the residential floors resembled that of hotels from before the war, only these floors were much larger than any hotel of the 21st century.

Richard continued straight down and to his second left. He stopped at his family’s room, room 1785. He rummaged through his hip sack and pulled out his room card and slid the card through the slot to the left of the door. The light flashed green and the metal door slid up. Richard walked in and went to his parents’ room. There, he sat down on the bed, put the bloody shotgun on the bed, and held his face in his hands.

He sat for about 20 minutes, letting it all out. Every time he thought he was finished, he’d recall another memory and start up again. He finally regained enough control of his sobs to look up at the stainless steel dresser with the family pictures displayed in the standard steel frames. He got up and walked over to the pictures. He picked them up, one by one, and examined each, leaving bloody finger prints on the steel frames. Behind the wide picture of him with his parents sat a decorated box.

Richard found this to be a little strange. There were barely any luxuries so decorative in the Vault. He picked it up and opened the lid. Inside, sat a necklace with a wide gold band on it. On the front sparkled 3 spheres of emerald, diamond, and ruby. The diamond was the largest and was displayed prominently in the centre. It was the single most beautiful object Richard had ever seen in his life.

He closed the box and put it back on the dresser. He’d had his cry, now he had the whole Vault to himself. He wasn’t about to set foot outside, for fear that there were more of those monsters out there. Everything he needed was in here, and he intended to make a life for himself within the empty shell of Vault 10.

And so ends Book 1: The Fall of Vault 10. The next chapters will be for Book 2: Title Pending. Glad you all enjoyed this thus far!

 

[DirtyDreamDesigner]

Great story, Frontball!