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]

"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."

[basic_powers]

"...only one of us can be invisible."

Pause. "...could sent a distraction through the halls..."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Actually, I managed to scrounge up a Stealth Boy," Ellen says. "I can be a distortion in the air for an hour, but I have to move slowly or people will notice. If we could combine the two..."

[basic_powers]

Tyler starts digging into his backpack for a moment before producing three items.

One is an unbroken glowstick. The other two are a daffy putty egg and controller.

"What distraction setting should it be?"

One glow-in-the-dark monster coming up!

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"One that people would rather run after to silence than shoot at," Ellen decides after a moment. "I don't want to take chances if we can avoid it."

[basic_powers]

"...so either 'screaming cabbage' or 'ceiling terror'." Tyler says, setting down the controller to break the inner tube in the glowstick and shake it up to a bright...pink glow.

"..."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Ceiling, I think," says Ellen. "They'll be looking up while we're on the ground, so- is it supposed to be that color?"