“It’s a simple reconnaissance mission Captain, you won’t need backup” the Colonels words rang loudly in the back of my head as I gritted my teeth forcing myself to run faster. Dashing down the corridor I cursed myself for not being more careful, now we had an army of raiders hunting us! Bullets striking the walls around us causing big clouds of dust and debris to
explode into the hallway, a few rounds flew right by us and struck the wall at far end of the corridor. My duster was flapping behind me as I thundered down the hallway, sometimes I really wished my gear wasn't so fucking heavy!
“How the hell did we get into this mess?!” Frank yelled.
“Shut up and run!” Jesse shouted in response, firing his sub-machine gun over his shoulder in our pursuers’ general
direction.
We were rapidly nearing the end of the corridor when I noticed a red door marked as “Maintenance” on my immediate right.
“Follow me!” I bellowed, throwing myself against the door at full speed. Despite it being over two-hundred years old the wooden door was surprisingly sturdy.
As I tumbled through the smashed door I found myself in complete darkness, I tripped on something and slammed into the cold steel floor, banging my head on a toolbox. My shoulder was aching and my chest felt sore, my forehead was bleeding badly.
I heard the low rumble of Frank’s machine gun as two strong arms grabbed me and started half-lifting, half-dragging me down some stairs. What the fuck are we supposed to do now? I thought as everything started getting fuzzy.
As I opened my eyes I saw that I was in some sort of infirmary/science-bay. With the adrenaline of the chase out of my system I felt just how much everything hurt. I winced from the pain of a bruised rib as I forced myself into a sitting position. I was lying on some kind of medical stretcher. I noticed that Frank was holding the door closed while Jesse was in the process of pushing a big steel-locker in front of it. I heard banging on the other side of the door. I grunted as I tried to get off the stretcher, on my second try I managed to get onto my feet.
“How the fuck did a bunch of raiders both successfully ambush and trap three Rangers inside of an old factory?”
“Fuck if I know.” Frank said.
“Michael you should-“Jesse started.
“Should what Jesse?”
I looked up at Jesse who seemed positively dumbstruck. As I turned around to see what he was looking at my jaw dropped. Behind a broken down wall on the far side of the med-bay was a massive steel gate with two spinning lights reveling the text “Vault-tec” engraved in the center of it.
After a bit of scavenging I found a flashlight in one of the lockers blocking the door and checked for batteries. ‘A half-spent fission battery and it seems functional’ I thought to myself as we approached the opening. I turned it on shining the light over the gruesome scene waiting on the other side of the wall. Dozens of skeletons were spread across the floor, old dried up bloodstains coloring most of the floor and the walls black.
“Unauthorized personal detected. Activating security systems, lethal force authorized” a robotic voice chimed. Two turrets placed above the door spun around and aimed straight at us.
“Take cover!” I shouted. But instead of blasting us apart, the turrets just made a few clicking noises.
“Out of ammo…” Jesse sighed with relief. Frank promptly shot both turrets causing two explosions.
“Dammit Frank!” I yelled as I put my fingers in my ears to stop the ringing. Frank just shrugged as I glared at him. After the ringing stopped I saw the control panel right next to the gate.
“What the fuck happened here?” Jesse asked with a disgusted look on his face.
“My guess is that they were the reason that those turrets ran out of ammo.” Frank muttered.
As I approached the controls I noticed a skeleton was lying on top of the panel. As I carefully lifted the skeleton of the panel I noticed that he or she had managed to punch in a password before dying.
“That’s convenient, we owe you, big time.” I said to the skeleton now lying on the floor next to the panel. As I pulled the lever the massive door gave out a hissing sound and an alarm started chiming.
We had been walking through the vaults murky hallways for about an hour before we found the anything useful, the infirmary. After patching ourselves up and grabbing a few supplies, mostly Stimpaks and Med-x, we continued down the hallways of the dark vault. Well at least until we reached a certain door.
“Kitchen/Dining Room, you think there is any food left?” Frank asked.
“The powers been out for lord knows how long, and you think there will be anything edible in there?” Jesse chuckled.
“Powers out? Those turrets sure looked very active!”
“They were probably running on their own generators, in case you haven’t noticed there are no lights on in here.”
I stopped and turned around. “Cut the chatter and get moving!” I barked at them.
“Yes sir!” They said in unison and with that we started moving down the hallway deeper into the vaults murky corridors.
It didn’t take long until we found something noteworthy, the bones of a worker still dressed in rags that resembled a vault jumpsuit. So this place actually had people in it? I thought as I took a closer look. I noticed that the skeleton had a Pipboy, it
didn’t take much effort to get it off, and with the Pipboy in my pack we kept moving.
After a while we stumbled onto what looked like another vault gate but much smaller than the one at the entrance. As we approached the door and I saw a terminal next to it, as I started accessing the firewall to hack it a robotic voice chimed.
“Please present your employee Pipboy for identification”.
Dumfounded I pulled out the device I had in my pack and presented it to the terminal. A small light started shining as the terminal scanned the Pipboy.
“Pipboy identification complete, welcome Director Phyllis” the voice chimed as the door swung open.
What waited on the other side of the door was unexpected. It was a cubical room with dark grey walls a few flickering lights and two big pylons sticking out of the walls that were emitting some electrical currents into the air, both pylons were pointing to a position directly above a platform with a terminal and some sort of chemical dispenser and as we stepped in we noticed that the floor was covered in a fine layer of dust.
“Good evening Director how was your day?” The robotic voice asked.
“Just fine and dandy…” I grumbled.
“Voice identification failed, activating security systems” The voice chimed loudly.
We all cried out different expletives as the door slammed shut behind us and a hatch opened in the roof. Only to hear a loud clang as the massive turret fell out of the hole and smashed into the floor with a loud -CLANG- causing the dust on the floor to rise.
“Fantastic.” I coughed while swaying my arms trying to clear away the dust.
Next to the security door was a small keypad. After examining it I noticed that not only couldn’t I hack it but the code was 42
digits long.
~42 digits?! What the fuck man!~ A voice in my head shrieked. “And here I thought I was finally rid of you.” I muttered.
~Well everyone needs a vacation now and then you know.~
Jesse looked at me like I was crazy; I just shrugged “I hear voices. Guess I got shot in the head one too many times.”
After three hours I gave up on guessing the code. We still hadn’t managed to find any way of opening the door.
“We’re not getting out of here, the code is 42 digits long and that will take years to guess.” I sighed.
“Why not just hack it?” Jesse suggested.
“I don’t see any point in trying. There is nothing to hack, if anything I could try to bypass it but that would most likely result is that I manage to fry the circuits.”
“I guess that’s bad?” Frank asked.
“B-bad? I asked, eye twitching. Yes Frank that would be bad! Without it all we can do is starve to death, which probably is what’s going to happen anyway since there is no way in hell to open this goddamn door!” I snapped at him and slammed my fist into the door.
Frank and Jesse shot me a worried look. I had never lost my cool; we’d seen and fought super mutants, deathclaws, even when cornered by a behemoth. Not even during the three weeks we had spent in the Legions prison camps. After going through our packs we realized we had barely enough food and water to live past the week. I really hated the idea of starving to death after everything that had failed to kill me.
That’s just great; I lead us into a death trap twice in one day! But that’s not the best part. In the first we would just have been shot or maybe a little tortured now we were going to starve instead. I sighed and went over the options.
Either we keep trying to guess the combination and starve or one of us could try the combination while two others killed themselves to spare provisions. Excellent leadership if we get out of here I’m resigning. After hitting the wall with my fist and cursing a couple of more time I decided I was going to try that damn terminal again and see if anything’s changed since the last time.
I walked up to the terminal and was greeted by something else then the last three times I had tried. “Begin experimental procedure?” After clicking my way through some screens it told me to put my arm into the chemical device.
Why the hell not? I thought putting my arm into the arm slot in the machine.
“Mike, the hell do you think you’re doing?” Frank shouted.
“Experimenting” ~We’re really this stupid?~ "I didn’t ask for your opinion." ~I’m your brain. My opinion is your opinion.~ "Shut up will you?"
I looked over at the screen and instead of the usual scientific mumbo-jumbo there was clear text.
My eyes widened when I started reading. “Injecting Biological Agent E-479x.” I hastily clicked up the specifics on the agent. “BA.E-479x Will alter your DNA string so that you become extremely susceptible to mutation. That will allow your DNA to change to the indignant life-form that is the closest to matching your DNA and body type upon entering another dimension.”
“What the f-fuck were they doing down here?” I stuttered. ~Nothing good would be my guess.~ If I could, I would have stomped my inner voice’s head into paste but that would be bad for me. Stomping your brain to mush is bad for you I’ve heard.
Then suddenly I felt an excruciating pain in my arm. “aahhAhhh!!!” I screamed as the machine released my arm. I could see my veins, they were glowing red. And my arm felt like it was on fire!
“Wormhole establishing in 3 - 2 - 1…” The robotic voice chimed. ~Ooh that sounds bad, but at the same time rather exciting!~ my brain chimed back.
Then there was a flash of light as the pylons fired some sort of energy beam between them, the beams connecting right above me. I saw a cyan colored cloud form above me and my eyes widened in horror as the cloud began dispersing, reveling a tunnel into what looked like space. I was suddenly yanked upwards as I caught a glimpse of something that made my heart sink into my feet. A cyan colored energy blast riveted across the room turning Frank and Jesse into dust.
“NO!” I screamed as I was sucked into the wormhole.
After what had been the most disorientating trip of my life I exited the wormhole into another dimension when a sudden pain shot through my body. It felt like every single one of my cells was being torn apart. I opened my eyes and all I could see was green. I noticed that it was grass and I was approaching it at an alarming rate. ~This is going to hurt, a lot.~
I slammed into the ground at bonecrushing speed and indeed I did hear a loud crack followed by immense pain. “What’n’tarnation?!” Someone yelled. The pain caused my vision to go a little blurry but my mind was already going into overdrive.
~What just happened? Did we just see a blue police-box? Who yelled? Is she going to help or gut us? And why is the grass so… comfortable?~ Didn’t matter how much my brain wanted answers, I simply groaned “ouch…” Upon which everything started getting even more blurry and I then something poked me on my now broken rib causing a wave of fresh pain to shoot through my body as everything went black.
‘Wake up!’ My brain yelled at me. Not yet, let them kill me first. ‘Wake up, or I’ll give you a tumor!’ Yeah right, you can’t do that, can you? ‘Want me to try?’ I started squirming a little bit.
“Oh good ah was gettin’ worried for a moment there, yah okay?” The female voice asked. ‘She’s got a southern accent? Where are we exactly?’
“I’ve been better” I groaned in response as I struggled to open my eyes. Blinking away the tears that had formed in my eyes I found myself staring straight into the face of a very odd looking orange pony wearing a cowboy hat. I noticed that I was lying on the pony’s back.
“Can yah walk?” she asked.
‘An orange p-pony? An orange pony wearing a Stetson hat? Screw this I’m taking a break. I’ll be back when the insanity settles.’ My eye started twitching violently as I slipped of her back and landed on the ground with a soft thump and a brand new jolt of pain.
“Ah g’ess not.” Was the last thing I heard before everything went black again.