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It was a Vault. Sweet baby Jesus, it was a Vault.
And it... was the wrong Vault.
After all this time, after all this struggle in the wilderness, after scorpions and aliens and robots and horrible people galore, after talking trees and superheroes and tongue monsters, she'd finally found a Vault- and it was, not Vault 112, but Vault 92. Staring at the great steel door (it must easily have been ten feet tall- fifteen? Who knew), she didn't know whether to burst into hysterical laughter, or fall on her knees and cry. It was like some kind of vast, awful joke...
Eventually she reached for the control panel instead. There was no intercom anywhere to be seen, no cameras to be found in the access tunnel that led here from the surface. In a half-daze, she checked the Pip-Boy on her left forearm; she'd picked up some access code data from the Overseer's computer on the way out of 101. There was no harm in trying the default access code, she thought, and she was right. Moments after she tapped the Enter button, yellow lights began to flare on and off, and shrill, grating sirens sounded. Their echoing blare was almost enough to drown out the groaning sound of metal on metal as the vast, ponderous mass of the Vault 92 door slid sideways, opening onto-
Onto darkness, and stillness, and a stench like old deaths long forgotten but never quite dispersed. Ellen shuddered involuntarily; Dogmeat leaned his head against her leg and whined. She wanted, very much, to do the same. All she could manage was to reach down to the dog and run her fingertips lightly over his head. After a while she looked back into the darkness. No one could possibly be alive in there. That air hadn't moved in decades, maybe more. This Vault had failed, somewhere along the way. It wasn't anything but a tomb now.
It might have been her imagination, but she thought she could make out a few red glimmers in the depths- emergency lighting? The sort Vault-Tec had installed in 101, but that she'd never seen turned on except during the yearly emergency drills? Maybe...
If the emergency lighting was still operational, then other things might be too. There might be enough power left in the reactor to pull a few seconds' worth of data off this Vault's Overseer's computer. Who knew? Maybe there'd been a file in Overseer Almodovar's computer saying where other Vaults were, and she hadn't been able to find it. Maybe... Maybe there was a chance. Maybe.
She looked down at Dogmeat again. "I think," she said, slowly, "we might have to go in there."
Dogmeat contrived to look at her as if he thought her head had been turned into an equivalent mass of pudding.
Damn it, the layout wasn't even the slightest bit similar to Vault 101's. Ellen had found the atrium and been glad of it, but the way that would have led to the Overseer's office in Vault 101 only led to the residential area. Between the faintness of the emergency lighting and the constant buzzing of bloatflies in the dark, Ellen was having real trouble keeping her directions straight. Normally that wasn't much of a problem for her underground, but this was like trying to navigate through the ghosts of home. It wasn't working.
She reached out to lean against the nearest wall, and bumped up against a desk unseen in the blackness. Something on the desk rattled; she turned her light its way. And wished she hadn't; the rattle had been bones, falling. Human bones- she'd only seen them for an instant before they fell out of the light, but the long bones of the arm were pretty distinctive. She stared for a long while at the now-empty spot on the desk, not really seeing anything, before the adrenaline-fueled pounding in her ears subsided enough to think. Trembling, she turned the light a little to one side.
Two hundred years after the fact, the skeleton had long since fallen apart; but the pelvis was still positioned in the chair, surrounded by a little heap of vertebrae and... other things. Whoever it was, they had died sitting here. And no one had found them but the bloatflies....
There was a skull not very far away. Most of the cranial vault was missing. There was also a revolver.
And there was a computer terminal, which took some coaxing, but which eventually managed to come up with enough juice to flicker into life.
MY DIARY
Zoe Hammerstein
Note 1 (Zoe's Thoughts)
It's so wonderful to be surrounded by all this talent! Little old me, who can barely play the violin, is sitting among some of the world's greatest musicians. I still can't believe my luck!
Today was great too. I was able to record an entire symphony... Haydn's Symphony No. 3 in d minor. It was so beautiful! I could barely keep up with everyone else in the string section, but they were so nice. They encouraged me instead of being stuffy jerks or something. Best of all, they record all of it and then let you hear yourself play on the studio's speakers. I can't wait until tomorrow... I hear we're doing a piece from Dvorak!
Note 2 (More of Zoe's Thoughts)
I've been feeling a little sick lately. Kind of woozy after playing in the studio usually. It gets so stuffy in that place, but it's sure worth it. I know I'm getting better just from watching my fellow violinist's techniques. They don't even mind giving me some pointers. Tonight, a bunch of us girls from the string section are going down to the rec hall for a dance. I hope that cute sound guy Parker asks me to dance. He's dreamy.
Note 3 (morre of Zoes Thoughts)
I'm nnot feling vvery good. I cant concentrate I wen t to Doctoor Bennisons offfice but he jusst said its stress and too take iit easy for a whil I think al the timee I am spendng inn the soundd sttudo is makd in g me tired I can barele type anymoor I am shaking so muc
Note 4 (klkhi plEAsse.HF puu HeLP meeLp)
aw;'jf OrDe R p[fal al Hlep HeLp dme Me, LosS mInd CANdofw stopthem gEt OUT m[pofmy HED
Ellen backed away from the desk, and the bones, and the whole of the room, never once taking her eyes off the heap of bones. When the door to the apartment finally slid shut between them, she sank to her knees and wrapped her arms around Dogmeat. It would be a while before she could manage much more than that.
And it... was the wrong Vault.
After all this time, after all this struggle in the wilderness, after scorpions and aliens and robots and horrible people galore, after talking trees and superheroes and tongue monsters, she'd finally found a Vault- and it was, not Vault 112, but Vault 92. Staring at the great steel door (it must easily have been ten feet tall- fifteen? Who knew), she didn't know whether to burst into hysterical laughter, or fall on her knees and cry. It was like some kind of vast, awful joke...
Eventually she reached for the control panel instead. There was no intercom anywhere to be seen, no cameras to be found in the access tunnel that led here from the surface. In a half-daze, she checked the Pip-Boy on her left forearm; she'd picked up some access code data from the Overseer's computer on the way out of 101. There was no harm in trying the default access code, she thought, and she was right. Moments after she tapped the Enter button, yellow lights began to flare on and off, and shrill, grating sirens sounded. Their echoing blare was almost enough to drown out the groaning sound of metal on metal as the vast, ponderous mass of the Vault 92 door slid sideways, opening onto-
Onto darkness, and stillness, and a stench like old deaths long forgotten but never quite dispersed. Ellen shuddered involuntarily; Dogmeat leaned his head against her leg and whined. She wanted, very much, to do the same. All she could manage was to reach down to the dog and run her fingertips lightly over his head. After a while she looked back into the darkness. No one could possibly be alive in there. That air hadn't moved in decades, maybe more. This Vault had failed, somewhere along the way. It wasn't anything but a tomb now.
It might have been her imagination, but she thought she could make out a few red glimmers in the depths- emergency lighting? The sort Vault-Tec had installed in 101, but that she'd never seen turned on except during the yearly emergency drills? Maybe...
If the emergency lighting was still operational, then other things might be too. There might be enough power left in the reactor to pull a few seconds' worth of data off this Vault's Overseer's computer. Who knew? Maybe there'd been a file in Overseer Almodovar's computer saying where other Vaults were, and she hadn't been able to find it. Maybe... Maybe there was a chance. Maybe.
She looked down at Dogmeat again. "I think," she said, slowly, "we might have to go in there."
Dogmeat contrived to look at her as if he thought her head had been turned into an equivalent mass of pudding.
Damn it, the layout wasn't even the slightest bit similar to Vault 101's. Ellen had found the atrium and been glad of it, but the way that would have led to the Overseer's office in Vault 101 only led to the residential area. Between the faintness of the emergency lighting and the constant buzzing of bloatflies in the dark, Ellen was having real trouble keeping her directions straight. Normally that wasn't much of a problem for her underground, but this was like trying to navigate through the ghosts of home. It wasn't working.
She reached out to lean against the nearest wall, and bumped up against a desk unseen in the blackness. Something on the desk rattled; she turned her light its way. And wished she hadn't; the rattle had been bones, falling. Human bones- she'd only seen them for an instant before they fell out of the light, but the long bones of the arm were pretty distinctive. She stared for a long while at the now-empty spot on the desk, not really seeing anything, before the adrenaline-fueled pounding in her ears subsided enough to think. Trembling, she turned the light a little to one side.
Two hundred years after the fact, the skeleton had long since fallen apart; but the pelvis was still positioned in the chair, surrounded by a little heap of vertebrae and... other things. Whoever it was, they had died sitting here. And no one had found them but the bloatflies....
There was a skull not very far away. Most of the cranial vault was missing. There was also a revolver.
And there was a computer terminal, which took some coaxing, but which eventually managed to come up with enough juice to flicker into life.
MY DIARY
Zoe Hammerstein
Note 1 (Zoe's Thoughts)
It's so wonderful to be surrounded by all this talent! Little old me, who can barely play the violin, is sitting among some of the world's greatest musicians. I still can't believe my luck!
Today was great too. I was able to record an entire symphony... Haydn's Symphony No. 3 in d minor. It was so beautiful! I could barely keep up with everyone else in the string section, but they were so nice. They encouraged me instead of being stuffy jerks or something. Best of all, they record all of it and then let you hear yourself play on the studio's speakers. I can't wait until tomorrow... I hear we're doing a piece from Dvorak!
Note 2 (More of Zoe's Thoughts)
I've been feeling a little sick lately. Kind of woozy after playing in the studio usually. It gets so stuffy in that place, but it's sure worth it. I know I'm getting better just from watching my fellow violinist's techniques. They don't even mind giving me some pointers. Tonight, a bunch of us girls from the string section are going down to the rec hall for a dance. I hope that cute sound guy Parker asks me to dance. He's dreamy.
Note 3 (morre of Zoes Thoughts)
I'm nnot feling vvery good. I cant concentrate I wen t to Doctoor Bennisons offfice but he jusst said its stress and too take iit easy for a whil I think al the timee I am spendng inn the soundd sttudo is makd in g me tired I can barele type anymoor I am shaking so muc
Note 4 (klkhi plEAsse.HF puu HeLP meeLp)
aw;'jf OrDe R p[fal al Hlep HeLp dme Me, LosS mInd CANdofw stopthem gEt OUT m[pofmy HED
Ellen backed away from the desk, and the bones, and the whole of the room, never once taking her eyes off the heap of bones. When the door to the apartment finally slid shut between them, she sank to her knees and wrapped her arms around Dogmeat. It would be a while before she could manage much more than that.