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

[basic_powers]

One probably could, if they were willing to crawl under the saw horses, like how Tyler's moving right now, with Winston simply walking under most of the objects.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen's a little too big for that to work; she's going to have to step around things or over things by hand. As for Tyler and Winston, they'll find when they get to the clinic that the door is stuck slightly ajar. Inside there are mattresses dragged onto the floor in places, and people- teenagers, mostly, but a good few adults as well- huddled in others, talking in low voices. All of them wear the same blue-and-gold Vault suit, zippered down the front, printed with 101 across the back.

[basic_powers]

...This seems like a really good time to go invisible and listen to what they're saying before coming in.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"-keep holding on. My dad can't keep his end up forever," says a young woman of about Ellen's age. She doesn't quite sound sure of that, but she's putting on a brave face.

"Who knows?" says one of the others, a nervous, short-haired young man. "Maybe- maybe he's come to his senses. All we want is to open the Vault door, not destroy it!"

"I know. I know," says the young woman again. "And if we're lucky we'll find a way to make him see that without anyone else getting hurt."

Several people glance towards the clinic's back door at that, but no one says anything.

[basic_powers]

That must be Amata, the one the guard mentioned earlier and the person that Ellen's supposed to talk to.

Tyler, still invisible glances back to see how well Ellen's doing at getting through the barricade.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen's just about managed to wriggle past the last one. She's very, very glad she didn't wear her armor; this would never have ended well. "Tyler?" she whispers. "Are we clear?"

[basic_powers]

"Yeah...no more traps, and I think your friend is the one trying to calm everyone down." He replies back softly, moving out of the way so Ellen can look through the open door to the people in the room.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The Ellen-blur glances into the room a moment. Then, silently, the blur resolves itself as the Stealth Boy field switches off. "Amata?" she says, stepping forward.

"Oh my God, you're back!" the other girl cries. "You got my message and actually came back!"

Ellen swallows- she can feel the others in the room turning their attention her way- and smiles. "I couldn't not," she says. "Pretty much as soon as I was back within range-"

There's a sudden murmur from a few of the older people; they're looking in Dogmeat's direction with wide, startled eyes. And Winston, too, for that matter, but they seem to consider both the animals equally bizarre.

[basic_powers]

"Winston, sit!" Tyler says appearing just behind Ellen in his full child-sized armor.

...The little weird black and gold thing promptly sits down into a resting position and looks at Tyler expectantly. See, he's being good!

"...good boy."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Okay, that, they didn't expect. There's going to be some discussion while they try to figure out whose kid is currently unaccounted for. Amata, however, is pretty well focused on Ellen herself. "Oh, thank you! Everything's gone crazy since you left, and now that you're back, you can help set things straight."

"You saved my life that day, Amata," Ellen said. "The least I could do is help out now."

"I just wish the others could see this-" She shakes her head. "It was bad enough they died because my dad was trying to keep the door closed, but then I found out it was all to protect a lie!"

[basic_powers]

Tyler's kind of watching the crowd before Amata's tone of voice gets him looking at her with rapt attention.


....oh please don't make someone from the Vault, aside from Ellen decide he needs mothering.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"What? How did you find that out?"

"After that night I heard Wally's dad say we should never have taken you or your Dad into the Vault," Amata says. "The Vault used to be open, but for some reason they closed it off when we were babies and swore to hide it had ever happened. Even Mrs. Palmer."

Old Lady Palmer, as wrinkled and brown as Ellen remembers her, nods sadly. She does manage a smile for Tyler, though.

"But keeping the secret meant Jonas' death," says Amata quietly. "And now even though we all know the truth, the Overseer still won't let us make our own decisions!"

[basic_powers]

...Tyler's going to be sitting down now and giving Amata almost all of his attention. The old lady smiling at him gets a glance though, she seems friendly enough.

"...why did they swear to hide it?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I don't know," Amata says. "Nobody knows except my dad, and he's not talking."

[basic_powers]

He's got a couple of good guesses why. Granted most of the guesses are coming from a history of reading comic books and dealing with the Political Twins everyday.

"...maybe we should find a way to make him talk."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Could you?" says Amata. "Please? We don't dare give up what little ground we've got; Dad's security men've locked the rest of the Vault down, and nobody's seen Mr. Brotch in days..."

[basic_powers]

"....does the Vault have a PA system that still works?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Sure," says Amata, and the others nod. "Right now it's just broadcasting over the radio frequency on people's Pip-Boys, though."

[basic_powers]

"...what's the frequency?" Tyler's starting to fuss with a little pocket gadget and something inside of his helmet.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Mrs. Palmer leans forward and holds out her Pip-Boy, tuning it to the Vault's interior frequency- which is currently broadcasting a warning for everyone, EVERYONE, to stay confined to quarters for the duration of the emergency.

[basic_powers]

It takes a bit of adjusting, but after a few seconds he's got the frequency preset into his little communicator...shouldn't be too hard to broadcast a much stronger signal over the current one!

"Thank you ma'am."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"You're quite welcome, young man," says Mrs. Palmer. "Although I don't think you're going to reach him on it. He seldom listens."

[basic_powers]

"I wasn't..." Tyler starts to say...but thinks better of it for a moment. "...just in case he starts talking about the 'why' of all this, I think I could rig my communicator to broadcast it to the Vault."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Mrs. Palmer's eyebrows go up at that; then she nods. "Well," she says, "it's not as if the other ways were working..."

"Please," says Amata, "just- just talk to him. And-" Her eyes flicker to the reinforced bits of Ellen's jumpsuit, the armor patches and laser pistol. "Don't hurt him?"

"I don't intend to hurt anyone," Ellen says, which is true enough. "Come on, T- Moon Shadow. We should go."

[basic_powers]

"Winston, heel!" The little raptor pops back up onto two feet as the boy reaches into a utility belt to give him a little beef jerky for being so well-behaved in front of the Vault dwellers. "Good boy."

...There's a little held out for Dogmeat too, he's been VERY good so far.