Trouble on the Homefront

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The door opens into the dusty, metal-smelling interior of a house built from the parts of long-ago airplanes. Light leaks into the room through the greased-paper covering over a few windows, and through the chinks in the metal walls. Ahead, a set of dented lockers takes up one wall. An alcove in the back seems to hold dishes and possibly an ancient refrigerator. There's a workbench off to the left, and stairs leading upward off to the right. "Well," Ellen says, "this is it. Home sweet home."

"Welcome back, mistress!" comes a tinny, mechanical voice from upstairs. "You weren't gone long at all that time..."

Comments

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen nods. "She appreciated it, though. I can tell you that much, at least."

[basic_powers]

Tyler just grins at that and kicks the dirt a bit, he wasn't thinking about her liking it...just that she might need something nice for once.

"...have you heard anything else about Canterbury Commons?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"The caravans are stopping there again," Ellen says. "Agatha, the lady I gave the violin to? She said that if the caravans had dropped Canterbury altogether, they probably would've dropped her too. Oh, and she asked about you, since Crazy Wolfgang the junk dealer told her it was 'the girl from Vault 101 and a kid' who put things right."

[basic_powers]

"Actually, Three Dog put that announcement on the radio as well." Tyler says after a moment of thought. "He wasn't that bad to talk to over my communicator."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"He's a pretty decent guy," Ellen agrees. "A little intense sometimes, but decent overall."

They've come a fair distance; she glances up at the rock formation.

"Almost there. This is the path up; there's a wooden door up at the top, into the tunnel that leads straight to the Vault."

[basic_powers]

"Okay," The gauntlet's getting armed just now. "Anything I should really worry about in there, aside from the security guys?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"There was a radroach infestation when I left," Ellen says. "I wouldn't be surprised if they're still having a problem. I don't know if they'd have activated the warehouse Protectrons as security, but keep an eye out for the robots, just in case."

[basic_powers]

Radroaches and robots.

Well. He could help fix the robots after busting them up, right?

"I'll try to just disable the robots without busting them up."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Thank you," says Ellen, and leads the way up into the tunnel.

It's a relatively short, wide run. The tunnel was originally built to let quite a lot of people in, after all. It's shadowy, though; Ellen turns on her Pip-Boy light, which plays over the bones of the dead she passed on her way out... it seems like a lifetime ago.

Up ahead, beyond the signs reading LET US IN YOU ASSHOLES and WE'RE DYING OUT HERE, there looms a door.

[basic_powers]

...If the min-raptor is sticking any closer to his person's legs, it's really of no notice.

Tyler's already got his flashlight in the gauntlet hand...and the training saber in the other, unlit.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It's all right," says Ellen quietly, approaching the console. "I know the entry codes."

She taps in the name Amata on the keypad, and presses the 'Activate' button. A moment later the klaxons begin to blare, the lights flash, and the door painfully griiiiiiiinds first backwards, then to one side. The room beyond is all metal, but sleek and clean, chrome and wire and tubing and rails... and wooden barricades, here and there, blocking off strategic areas. Otherwise, though, it's empty.

(Well, except for the suddenly lunging radroach.)

[basic_powers]

This would be Tyler backpedaling as the miniraptor meets radroach head on!

"KREEEAAH!"

No one has a translation for miniraptor, but it's a fair bet on 'prepare to die!'.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Radroaches go down much easier than mole rats. You can kill them with BB guns. Ellen used to all the time, when she was a kid.

"Well, he seems to be having fun..."

[basic_powers]

"Phhhrrrrt."

"Yeh...you can tell by how his tail's wagging."

And bringing a leg back as a 'gift' to his packmate. Really, Tyler will treasure this.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen wrinkles her nose. "That stuff's greasy," she says, and that's all she says. "All right, come on-"

Tyler might notice, as Ellen heaves open the handle to the next door, that there's a human-shaped shadow on the other side.

[basic_powers]

...There is not a Tyler here.

There's a miniraptor depositing another leg at Ellen's feet as the door opens however and making the happiest noises ever.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Stop right there!" cries a man's voice; Ellen freezes. The figure that steps into view is wearing basic body armor over a blue Vault jumpsuit, and has a helmet on with a clear Plexiglass visor down. He's also got a gun in one hand. "I don't know how you got in here, but-"

"Officer Gomez?" Ellen says in some surprise.

[basic_powers]

"...krah? ....rrrrrrrr..."

Is the uniformed man threatening the nice people?

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

No, he's not, he's lowering the gun. And- just for the moment- he's sufficiently stunned not to notice the little raptor. "Wait a minute," says Gomez. "Ellen? Is that you? I- I didn't recognize you, with all the dirt and grime from out there-" He shakes his head. "Guess that explains how you got that door open. You've got more experience with that thing than everyone else down here combined."

Ellen is doing her best not to look in the raptor's direction. Or Dogmeat's. Dogmeat is still trying to decide if he needs to kill this man. "I need to talk with Amata," she says, ignoring the animals as hard as she can. "I got her message..."

[basic_powers]

While Ellen's talking to the nice man in uniform, Tyler's just going to move very silently behind her legs, and tug her suit a bit to remind her that he's there.

Does she want him to go visible and say hi?

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen silently shakes a hand behind her back as Officer Gomez starts talking about the situation in the Vault- something involving tensions after she left, and rebels, and whatnot. Given the way he's talking it seems much safer to her to indicate the door on the other side of the room, which Gomez left open; it feeds into a hallway well out of sight of the man with the gun.

[basic_powers]

He doesn't need much more direction than that, tugging Winston by his collar to get him to come along. Once he's in the hallway, he's staying invisible until given a reason not to be.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen comes along shortly after, Dogmeat in tow. "Officer Gomez is checking out the door area now," she says. "He says Amata's dad started flipping out for real after I left, and got so dictatorial that people started calling work stoppages. The kids my age or so were the last straw- the adults wanted him to stop being a jerk, but the kids wanted to get out. He says we'd better stay out of sight and try to find Amata, he can't tell us any more than that."

[basic_powers]

"Kay, did he say where Amata was?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Down in my father's clinic," Ellen says. "We need to get past the atrium and the cafeteria and then through the living quarters without being seen. The atrium's up ahead. Officer Gomez says they're in lockdown, so hopefully we just have to avoid the Overseer looking out his office window."