After the Vault: Chapter 01
    
    Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of Fallout or anything that 
comprises it. This is a non-profit story written solely for my own 
enjoyment and that of anyone who wishes to read it. The story and all 
original characters are mine. Please don't use them without permission.
    
    Story notes: This story takes place after the events of the original 
Fallout game, but no knowledge of the game itself is required to read 
it. I am simply using the Fallout universe as my irradiated playground, 
and exploring a possible central USA after the bomb. 
    Like the games it will explore several dark themes, contain heavy 
levels of violence and profanity at times, and feature situations that 
some readers (and some of the characters!) may consider unethical. 
    Updates may be sporadic, for which I apologise in advance. Finally, 
this story will feature lesbian romance, but I'm not about to apologise 
for that!
    
***
    
    After the Vault
    
    -A Fallout Fan-Fiction by Nutzoide-
    
    
    Chapter 01
    
    From A World of Night-Lights...
    
    
    Lying on her bunk, her legs crossed and swinging idly against the 
wall, Abigail toyed with the little blue book that sat on her pillow, 
all the while bathed in the dusky glow of the room's single 40 watt 
light bulb. 
    
    The book matched every other diary that had been provided in the 
vault, with a yellow '42' emblazoned in bold, bright yellow type in the 
bottom corner, and at the base of the spine. The same number sat both 
on the left breast of Abigail's equally blue jumpsuit and in huge 
yellow numbers across the back, as it did on every one of the 1,999 
other identical jumpsuits in Vault 42. 
    
    As fashions went it was rather criminal, but when there was nothing 
else to wear a girl got used to it. Especially since she had never 
known anything else in the way of clothing. That constant shade of 
blue, and that single bright number, was as much a part of life in the 
vault as 'Coca-Cola' had been on the surface, both before and after its 
atomic age re-branding. It was printed and painted and sewn everywhere 
and onto everything that had ever existed in their underground city.
    
    Abigail only knew the 'Coke' brand (or 'Nuke' as it had become, a 
poor choice in her greatly more cynical, post war eyes) from that book 
in her hands. She had read and re-read it over and over since she had 
been six years old. Her late grandmother had missed the drink terribly 
when she and her family had first entered the vault, or so the diary 
told. 
    
    'October 23, '77 - Mom says we all have to start a new diary now. 
I'm inside the vault, because they said on the T.V. that the war 
started after all, and we had another bomb raid drill today. I hoped it 
wouldn't happen, because we were just waiting and nothing was 
happening. The bombs should reach us soon, but we'll be safe here 
underground. I wish more people came. Everyone was panicking too much 
and saying it wasn't real and not everybody came. Mom says we have to 
stay here for ten years. I'll be grown up by then. I don't want to grow 
up down here. Can't they at least turn the lights up? It's hard to 
write like this.'
    
    Abigail looked up at the gentle light bulb. It seemed fine to her, 
but her grandmother had complained about it even on her deathbed. All 
the technology to make an underground city for a thousand people to 
escape from 'The Bomb', and they couldn't provide stronger light bulbs.
    
    But, as Abigail had been taught, more than a few things had not gone 
to plan in the vault. Even from the start, of the 1,000-person capacity 
that the vault had, only 643 beds were filled before the great door 
closed.
    
    The ten years that her grandmother had written of had passed slowly, 
but they had also passed silently, with no word from the world outside. 
The government of America, and the controller vault, had never made a 
single transmission. Ten years had become fifteen, and fifteen, for 
safety's sake, and become twenty. After that it had been clear that 
they were on their own, and with their Garden of Eden Creation Kit (tm) 
in their hands, the exploration party had ventured up the elevator 
beyond the very first floor, to the surface.
    
    Not one of them survived. Her grandmother's account of it was almost 
illegible, but after thirteen years of study Abigail knew it by heart. 
The Garden of Eden Creation Kit (tm) had been one of those miracles of 
technology, like the AppleSoft Think Machine (tm) computer that ran the 
vault. It was to have been the instrument that would allow the vault to 
open and reclaim the nuclear wasteland that America would undoubtedly 
become. Micro terraforming and chemical atmosphere reprocessing in a 
single shining suitcase.
    
    After taking the off-the-chart radiation reading from within the 
cave that hid the vault's giant steel door, the twenty man team stayed 
above ground only for the hour that the kit required to be made 
functional, and every one of them had taken the advertised dosage of 
anti-radiation medication. Twelve of them had made it back to the 
elevator before the horrific levels of radiation had killed them 
outright. Six survived the three-minute elevator journey back to the 
vault. Even with all the state of the art medical supplies within the 
vault, only two survived the night, to die the following day. 
    
    The door was sealed tight again, the elevator decontaminated, and 
Abigail's grandmother had cried throughout the hero's funeral that had 
been held for those poor, ill-fated men. The radiation had been 
stronger than anyone could have guessed, the Garden of Eden Creation 
Kit (tm) had been clumsy and difficult to activate, and the advertised 
dosages of preventative medication had been woefully inadequate.
    
    The much vaunted G.E.C.K. had been activated, but the people of 
Vault 42 had been cheated. The Overseer, the ultimate human authority 
within the vault, made a public apology to the people he was supposed 
to have led to safety. He recorded his purging of the AppleSoft Think 
Machine (tm) administrative and government records and security 
restrictions, severing ties with the non-existent outside authority. He 
announced that they would become their own independent state, and 
apologised for his willing part in what he called 'the government of 
America's great vault fiasco'.
    
    No one ever did discover just what he meant by that. He had taken 
his own life that same night, and had purged the evidence of his 
culpability along with the records. It had been a dark new start for 
Vault 42, but a new council of Overseers was voted into office, and 
though the ten years of generous expected supplies had run low a 
careful new system of rationing and vault maintenance was put into 
place. Faith in the Garden of Eden Creation Kit (tm) had fallen, so a 
new, longer-term view of vault life had been adopted.
    
    And, most needed of all, the ban on the conception of children was 
finally lifted. If they were to survive, a new generation could no 
longer be thought of as a drain on finite resources. They would be the 
future leaders and maintainers of Vault 42. 
    
    And the scheme worked. The steady populace of almost 650 could be 
sustained with careful hydro-agriculture and diligent repair to vault 
systems. Only another two decades on, after a potentially lethal 
corruption, and the subsequent deletion, of the AppleSoft Think Machine 
(tm) automated protocols, did the Overseers finally send out another 
party to the surface to see whether the Garden of Eden Creation Kit 
(tm) had done its work.
    
    It hadn't.
    
    The radiation level had been lowered by the G.E.C.K, both within and 
outside the cave, but it had overwhelmed the vegetation, turning it 
into a gnarled and ropy forest of half-death. Worse, some of those 
burnt plants had developed animal traits, mutated by the burning 
atmosphere, and those toothy maws fed on the large and unhealthy 
looking rats that had survived and come to infest the new irradiated 
garden. The Bomb had won out over The Miracle.
    
    Even medicated up to the maximum safe prevention dosage the four 
explorers all suffered from the radiation. Though they survived, they 
stood as proof that the surface was now a new incarnation of Hell. Only 
the knowledge that it could still support some form of twisted life 
gave them hope that the land might once again be colonised, many years 
from then.
    
    Reading all those events in that unlabeled diary, the first 
inhabitants of Vault 42 lived such challenging and exciting lives. The 
drama and the intrigue lived on in those pages. In comparison her own 
generation, the baby boom of '43, seemed to live such a plain life. She 
was schooled in all manner of practical and theoretical subjects, and 
had been trained in her vocational field, inter-level maintenance, 
since she was of working age. When she could gather her friends they 
joined in with the regular shifts to the vault cinema to vote for an 
old slice of twenty second century Americana that they had not already 
seen thirty times before, or if alone she escaped from the repetitive 
films to the gymnasium to dance and climb and tumble around until she 
wore herself out. 
    
    And the yearly vault festival. While birthdays and Christmas were 
always occasions for communal celebration, it was the Festival that got 
the entire vault together. A full two-day party in commemoration of one 
simple realisation two generations before: Vault 42 was not a necessity 
to be endured. It was their home.
    
    Abigail enjoyed the festival more than most, she would have said. 
With her thin physique and passion for athletics she was a decent 
candidate to be a vent technician, but she was already a superb stage 
performer. She had enjoyed her own festival spot on the giant tenth 
floor stage since the age of ten, either performing her acrobatics 
alone or with the other dancers in the vault. Now, at nineteen years 
old, she would spend months beforehand devising new and interesting 
routines for that short hour when she could entertain everyone that she 
knew in the entire world.
    
    "Abby!" The utilitarian dormitory door slid upwards into the ceiling 
and her mother marched in, red faced. "Abby, have you turned your 
PipBoy off, or have you just gone deaf? Marcus has been beeping you for 
twenty minutes! Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is for him to 
have to call me in order to get you to work twenty minutes late?!"
    
    Abigail looked over to see a shorter, sturdier version of herself. 
It was deeply worrying how much she had grown to look like her mother. 
At least Abigail had her dancer's plait, a strong and well cared for 
braid falling down past her waist and ending tied around a small, thick 
gold hoop, instead of the deeply unfashionable bob her mother wore. 
"I.. uh, I guess I forgot to turn it back on?"
    
    She quickly pressed the power button on her wrist mounted data 
device, and the comic-book style Vault Boy character appeared with a 
grin and a thumbs up on the small, high definition green-screen before 
fading to show the time and the list of chores she had entered into it.
    
    The first of which, her technical training, she was well overdue 
for. While she could crawl and slide through even the most awkward of 
the vault's access vents all day (and had done in her earlier years, 
much to the consternation of the technicians at the time) she found the 
mechanical side of the vocation far harder going. And she had less than 
a year - until her twentieth birthday - before she began working on it 
alone whether she was ready or not.
    
    "Sorry Mom!" she sprang out of her bunk and down to the floor, 
sending her sheets and her long plait flying behind her. "I'll tidy it 
when I get back! I *really* didn't realise the time! And I know I 
shouldn't jump from the top bunk!"
    
    She scooted through the door and past her identically clad mother 
before the older woman could put another word in. "No," the older woman 
muttered to herself as she stepped inside the bunk-room, "we both know 
who is going to be cleaning up after you."
    
    She picked up the sheet that had floated to the floor. "And if you 
give me the 'I'm no good with mornings' excuse again you can fend for 
yourself tonight - from your own pocket - while your father and I are 
at the cinema. Honestly, the first time in weeks we can both book seats 
for a film without worrying about the vote, and you show us up like 
this."
    
***
    
    Their underground city died that day. 
    
    The demise of Vault 42 was broadcast first to the technical control 
team as a single red warning light and a thin, reedy buzzer. Somehow, 
without their control, the surface door was open, and it wouldn't 
close. After a moment's confusion they sounded the alarm throughout the 
vault, and locked down the surface elevator. 
    
    Nothing human could have breached that door, and it was nothing 
human that had sought refuge in their cave, and found the entrance to 
their home.
    
    Deep in the bowels of the access vent system, Abigail and her tutor 
Marcus both looked up at the sound of the emergency siren, and cracked 
their heads together in the confined space.
    
    "Oww!" Abigail exclaimed, rubbing her aching forehead. "What was 
that? We aren't scheduled for a drill today!"
    
    Marcus had come to the same conclusion the moment their heads had 
met, and he rubbed the back of his own as his throat went dry. "Then 
it's not a drill. Come on Abby, we have to get out of the pipe. Move."
    
    Without another word Abigail did as she was told, and set her mind 
on the vent above her, crawling up the ladder and out as fast as she 
could to give Marcus room to do the same. Whatever was happening, she 
was the one who was in the way, and as one of the head technicians 
Marcus had work to do. They came out in the level four restrooms, and 
as soon as Marcus appeared from the hatch he had his hands at the 
PipBoy on his wrist. "Marcus here, what's happening guys? We've got a 
life support failure?"
    
    "I wish!" came the grainy voice through the PipBoy speaker. "Heads 
up for the public announcement, and do what you're told Marcus. You too 
Abigail."
    
    So, it wasn't a mechanical or computer failure. For a brief moment 
Abigail found that reassuring, until her wits caught up with her and 
she realised what it meant: it wasn't something that Marcus or any of 
the maintenance or repair staff could fix. This had never happened 
before. Not even to her grandmother.
    
    The siren cut out, but the red warning lights continued to spin as 
the vault-wide speaker system crackled to life. "Attention Vault 42." 
It was the voice of Overseer Jameson. "This is an emergency situation. 
The surface door has been breached. According to the vault sensors, 
there are only four beings responsible, and they are at this moment 
climbing their way down the elevator shaft. They are not human, and are 
emitting notable levels of radiation, but they would have to be at 
least partially sentient to have destroyed the vault door, probably 
with large quantities of high explosives. We do not know how much they 
might have left, or how they may be armed, if at all. All physical 
security personnel arm yourselves for severe close action and take up 
your positions. However, you are to attempt to make verbal contact with 
the intruders one time, and one time only. If they do not reciprocate, 
exterminate them. We don't know what they may be, so take no risks.
    
    "All children and educational personnel, take refuge in the level 
ten auditorium. Secondary security and full team technical personnel, 
arms yourselves as per civil defence procedures and prepare to hold 
level ten. Everyone else, take refuge in the standard emergency areas, 
and be prepared to barricade them. The Overseers will meet you there. 
Be calm people, and think clearly. This is just a precautionary 
measure, but be prepared."
    
    Abigail looked to her tutor for guidance. "Am I full team 
technical?"
    
    "No, you are *not*, Jinx." He ignored her scowl at the unfortunate 
nickname, and flashed her a smile. "You still can't re-wire anything 
without me holding your hand. I'm amazed the Overseers let you anywhere 
near the computerised areas. If we gave you a weapon it'd probably blow 
up in your face."
    
    "It's not my fault!" Abigail retorted reflexively, swallowing hard 
with worry for her older work-mates. Several of them would be taking up 
arms on the lowest level, both from the limited armoury and with 
improvised weapons from their line of work. And Marcus was making fun 
of her? "I *do* try and I'm *not* incompetent! It's not my fault if God 
hates me!"
    
    "Of course he does, you never go to chapel," Marcus quipped, trying 
to ease her obviously frayed nerves. "And no, I'm not saying it because 
your bad luck is infectious. No-one even cares about a few unfortunate 
coincidences besides you - well, you and Alfy Parker, but he should 
have been more careful. This is about the rules Abby. Get to your 
emergency area and keep their spirits up there, because they'll need 
it."
    
    Abigail managed a smile. She had needed the reassurance, so she 
could forgive him bringing up those past embarrassments. He was a 
decent guy when it came down to it. She turned to go.
    
    "Abby," he called after her, "stay alert. You know this isn't 'just 
a precaution', right?"
    
    Abby nodded from the doorway. She knew she wasn't the quickest girl 
off the mark unless it wasn't a euphemism, but after six years studying 
under him she had learned a few of Marcus' realistic, analytical 
sensibilities. "Yeah. If they just wanted to meet us, why wouldn't they 
use the control panel out there and ask to come down, right?"
    
    "Good girl. Go. And tuck that pigtail in before you catch it in a 
door!"
    
***
    
    By the time Abigail reached the central corridor on level 4 it was 
already deserted. Each level was, essentially, its own little town, 
with its own necessities, such as schoolrooms, technical station and 
kitchen. The emergency areas had been re-designated before she had been 
born, so that each Overseer would take control of one kitchen per 
level, from level four to level nine. The tables had been unbolted from 
the floor, so that if needed they could be tipped over to give cover. 
That left the armed security team with the first three floors if the 
surface elevator and the main hallway between that and the main vault 
elevators could not be held. For a society that never expected to even 
hear from the surface again it was a thoroughly planned compromise of 
the original vault-invasion defence plans.
    
    Abigail assumed, with three floors and ten fully armed, armoured and 
trained security people, that it gave her enough time to get to her 
sixth level evacuation point the fastest way: the vault's own 
elevators. They would only get locked down in the event that the first 
line of defence was compromised, and even the access vents were easier 
to use (and for Abigail, quicker) than the emergency stairways between 
the levels.
    
    Neither she nor the main security team expected the intruders to rip 
through their fully equipped greeting party like a fist through tissue 
paper. The first intruder had not even given the team leader time to 
finish his one attempt at diplomacy before it levelled its minigun at 
him, wielding the huge weapon in only one hand, and tore both him and 
his backup man to shreds.
    
    The team lasted only twenty seconds once the firefight broke out in 
full, so when Abigail called first the left elevator and then the 
right, they were already coming down - from the first floor - and 
stopping alternately at each one. 
    
    "No," she whispered to herself. Both of them should have been on the 
tenth level still. "They couldn't be..."
    
    The right hand elevator stopped on level three, and when the left 
came down to meet her she found herself staring up into it. Behind the 
doors stood the biggest creature Abigail had ever seen. It was almost a 
man, but stood hunched over at ten feet tall and was as wide as the 
full span of Abigail's arms, made of nothing but muscle and thick, 
unhealthy green-brown skin. Huge crooked teeth protruded from blackened 
gums as it heaved and panted in the confined space. Each elevator had a 
capacity of twenty men, but two of those things would have filled it. 
Maybe three if they all breathed in. It wore patches of scrap armour 
made of metal sheet, bolted to thick straps of leather to hold it 
together, but even so from the look of it the creature had taken three 
full shells of buckshot across its areas of unprotected skin, and 
Abigail could only guess at how many pistol bullets had hit their vast 
target.
    
    "Damned humans..." it wheezed in a low, guttural voice as it looked 
down with beady but apathetic eyes at Abigail, who stood petrified in 
front of the door.
    
    It was then that she registered the wide, cylindrical, six-barrelled 
gun that the blasted hulk held in its right hand, and the bent metal 
pipe that hung from the fingers of its left. Only then did the fight or 
flight response fill her brain, and she ran before the thing could even 
raise the gun to fire at her. 
    
    Even though she was gone the creature didn't bother stopping, and a 
loud whine started up before a hail of lead tore down the level's main 
corridor. The weapon lit up the hallway so brightly that even though 
Abigail was fleeing, its repeating flash almost blinded her. The gentle 
lights of the vault were nothing compared to that long, sharp yellow-
white light. In the back of her mind Abigail thanked her terrible, 
infectious luck for once, because the weapon stopped firing suddenly, 
jamming with a crack of metal meeting metal, and the hulk-creature 
swore with another tired wheeze. She also thanked whatever impulse it 
was that had made her run to the left and towards the technician's room 
rather than back down the main hall, because if she had she would 
already have been smeared across the walls. 
    
    But most of what filled her mind was panic. Those things were inside 
Vault 42, and they had killed the best of their security teams so 
quickly. Even barricaded in the kitchens, how could any of the 
evacuation areas hold up against that kind of monster?!
    
    Behind her the creature threw his gun out of the elevator, and 
stepped out just in time for the other elevator to reach that floor. 
Abigail almost screamed as she heard another of those impossibly deep 
voices.
    
    "There is no-one up there," it grunted, far more forcefully that the 
monster Abigail had seen. "And I heard your gun. Have you found them, 
Gazor?"
    
    The monster Gazor huffed and spat out a mouthful of deep red blood. 
"A girl. She ran off. Why did you shoot them? We could have bargained 
for their lives, and now I am full of bullets, and Luthar is dead from 
them. And I see nothing but shadows in these tiny night-time lights."
    
    "This is *our* vault now," the strong, angry monster roared back. 
"Everythin' is ours! They don' have to give it. We can take it!" He 
levelled his own huge gun at Gazor. "Go down, find them, and kill them 
all! I'll find this girl, and everyone else hidin' here. And maybe you 
will see better down there," it sneered.
    
    The Gazor creature just stared at the other monster for a moment, 
before picking up its gun and getting back into the elevator. From the 
doorway to the technician's room Abigail began to shake in panic. Now 
it was the more insane of the two monsters that was on her level. And 
its gun still worked.
    
    Abigail really had the worst luck in the world, and only when it 
mattered. The second this new creature started towards her she 
retreated into the room properly, locking the door the moment it slid 
back to the floor. There was now a barrier between her and the 
creature, but the clean swish of the door had also let it know exactly 
were she was.
    
    She retreated to the ventilation shaft just in time. The leather 
brown monster-man smacked against the door a few times, and when the 
door did not rise for it, it unloaded its belt of ammunition into 
metal. It took a moment, and the peppering of dents that finally 
appeared let Abigail know that the door wouldn't hold. When the 
creature's weapon had spent its load a single kick from its huge booted 
foot tore open the brutalised steel like it had been tin foil.
    
    "I see you, little human girl!" 
    
    Abigail was down the vent like a ferret in its run, already to the 
bottom and under the floor before the monster had even reached the 
hatch. She took a moment to catch her breath. There was no way that 
hulking brute would be able to fit into the vent system, and she hoped 
it was too stupidly hostile to realise where the pipe had taken her. 
    
    The monster just jeered at her, reloaded his gun, and shoved it down 
the pipe before firing off another blast of bullets that turned the 
vent wall, floor and access ladder into Swiss cheese. Even though she 
was a good two feet away from the tearing metal she still scrambled 
back in fright, silently begging not to be hit.  
    
    Then, just as shockingly, the terrible sound cut out, and the whirr 
of the rotating gun barrels slowed to a stop. "Heh heh, stupid humans 
can't run away." It almost sounded like an evil, bass singsong of a 
threat. Then she heard something clatter down the shredded vent. A 
small, egg shaped something, that a second later spouted out two great 
gouts of smoke. The creature was trying to smoke her out, or choke her 
to death, and this was exactly the reason that the pipes had to be 
evacuated in any kind of emergency. That single grenade could flood out 
a full quarter of the vault's vent access. She scrambled forward and 
kicked it further down the pipe, to the next drop that lead to the 
lighting and air recycling systems between the floors. That would give 
her some time to escape the smoke, she hoped, and it would not filter 
through to any of the evacuated groups because the air recycling was a 
closed system.
    
    What smoke she had breathed burned her throat though, and made her 
eyes water and her head swim. Above her she heard the hulking mutant-
man swear. "Fuck it! Where's the fire and bang!? Stupid grenades all 
look alike." He huffed and spat down the shaft before slamming the 
hatch closed to keep the smoke inside. "You can choke there, stupid 
human girl!"
    
    And, Abigail realised, she would. She was among the fastest through 
those pipes, but she had been hyperventilating in panic - she still 
was, and she couldn't stop it! - and she had breathed too much of the 
thin smoke already. The stupid creature hadn't realised it, but since 
she had kicked the grenade down between levels this smoke would be far 
more effective than any belated explosion. It was not just a 
smokescreen she realised as her vision began to blur from more than 
just the tears in her eyes, it was some kind of nerve gas as well.
    
    She reached the far side of level four's under-floor crawlspace and 
some relative safety from the worst of the smoke before, coughing and 
sobbing as her panic gave way to bleary-minded and terrified hysteria, 
she thankfully passed out.

***
    
    The first thing to scare her when she woke was the darkness. Even 
after spending her entire life living and working under the meagre 
shine of 40 watts - a bedside lamplight by her grandmother's standards 
- waking in total darkness brought her aching body and foggy mind back 
to attention with a jolt. She never woke before the lights came back on 
in the early hours of the morning. She just couldn't handle early 
starts. And even on those rare occasions that she had been dragged from 
her bed, there were the tiny guidelights by the doors and along the 
edges of the corridors, which rarely ever blew and so could be left on 
for safety's sake without worrying for their conservation.
    
    But the pitch blackness, and then the cold, hard metal beneath her, 
and then the silence; the whole terrible memory came flooding back to 
her. Those huge green monsters had broken into Vault 42, her only 
vault, with weapons that she had only even seen in the cinema. 
    
    The brown monster's deep, barking words came back to her.
    
    "Go down, find them, and kill them all."
    
    Worried adrenaline flooded her brain again. How long had she been 
asleep? Were those creatures still there? Could the second security 
team or the emergency barricades have actually fought off those hulking 
giants?
    
    Was there anyone left alive?
    
    And in contrast to all her fears, as she got to her hands and knees 
and began to crawl to the nearest pipe hatch, she thanked God that she 
was still alive. Had that grenade been an explosive, would it have 
given her time to kick it away? Had the less crazy monster not stood 
wounded and staring at her in the dim light for so long, would she have 
had time to run before his first brief hail of gunfire had torn her 
apart? Had that smoke been truly toxic, or a lethal nerve gas, would 
she have asphyxiated in her vent pipes and never woken at all?
    
    Above her fear for everyone she knew and everyone she cared about, 
she was relieved that she had survived. Even though she did not know 
whether they had managed the same. Putting her hand to the access 
ladder back up to level four, she paused just long enough to be sick 
across the vent floor because of it.
    
    She wiped her mouth as she emerged into the first aid bay on level 
four, and forcibly ignored those selfish thoughts. She had to be 
worried about her friends now, and her family. She made straight for 
the kitchen, hoping against hope that the green-brown monster had not 
been able to make good on its threat.
    
    The second the door slid upwards, it was clear that it had. Even 
though her stomach had emptied and her mouth still tasted of bile, her 
cry of horror was cut short as she retched up what little had remained 
inside her. The long steel tables had been dented beyond recognition, 
and even tossed about the room in a way that would have taken five or 
six men to re-arrange. 
    
    And the blood. It wasn't a kitchen any more, but an abattoir. 
Abigail had been right. Even fifty men and women could not defend 
themselves with a single gun and some kitchen knives against that 
creature and its evil weapons. 
    
    The tears began to flow freely down her face as she wiped her mouth 
on her blue jumpsuit sleeve again. "Gillian? 'Trish? Overseer Jahera? 
Someone answer me!!!"
    
    Only the single dull echo from the huge room replied, and Abigail 
fled from the bloody spectacle, and the sound of her own harrowed 
voice. She ran back to the main hall, trying desperately not to look at 
the bullet holes and the large, bloody boot prints that she followed to 
the elevators.
    
    She tried to dry her eyes as she waited for it to arrive. She needed 
to steady herself, and not faint as she got inside. She had to be 
strong. Her parents were on level six, and even though she knew what 
she would see, she still had to see it for herself. She had to hope 
that they had somehow survived. 
    
    She burst into tears again when the elevator began to play its light 
jazz rendition of the old classic 'The Girl from Ipanema'. She screamed 
at the machine to turn it off and the elevator did so, the calm 
synthesised female voice pleased as ever to do as it was asked. That 
only made Abigail cry harder.
    
    By the time the elevator reached level six her legs had lost their 
urgency to get her to this level's kitchen. She plodded down the main 
corridor as though walking to her own execution. The bloody boot-prints 
tracing up and down the corridor killed what little hope had remained 
in her. In the end she did not even open the main kitchen door. She 
just activated the room's communicator by the door's controls.
    
    "Is anyone in there? Please, anyone..."
    
    She waited for two minutes in silence.
    
    "Anyone..."
    
    Then she realised she had to see it. Someone might have been 
injured, but not killed, and unable to get to the microphone, but she 
regretted it the moment the door slid up. Blood coated everything. No 
one coughed or twitched or called for help amidst the gory mess. One of 
the monsters' huge miniguns lay discarded against one of the tables, 
either broken for good or with no more ammunition to fuel it, but it 
had not needed it. The monster must have used another weapon to finish 
them off. Something blunt and heavy, but Abigail could not bring 
herself to look any further, or guess what it might have been.
    
    They were dead; that was all that mattered. It would be the same on 
every level. Any other survivors would have hidden away from the 
emergency evacuation areas, like she had done. 
    
    But the second security force, and the armed technical team, might 
have made a last stand down on level ten. It was another last hope to 
keep her searching for survivors, and she walked slowly back to the 
elevator. She cried still, and harder than ever, but her cheeks could 
get no wetter, and her sorrow and grief was giving way to dull 
numbness. The scale of it was too much to be sorry over. It was now an 
event outside her comprehension. The corpses strewn about the kitchen 
were no longer people she could recognise. They couldn't be if she was 
to keep going and remain sane, so that part of her mind was simply 
shutting down. She was an outsider in a war zone. 
    
    Though she had never lived anywhere else, Vault 42 didn't seem like 
home any more. That was what scared her now, more than anything else. 
Even more than the monsters.
    
    When the elevator doors opened again it was a more detached eye that 
viewed the carnage in the hallway. She retched again at the smell of 
the blood that pooled across the floors and dripped from the walls, but 
it was more a physical response than anything else. She was in shock.
    
    The guns, welding lasers and other tools that the defenders still 
held had obviously not been enough. She saw Marcus still lying in his 
point position by the data archive doorway a few meters in. He was more 
intact than some, but still the line of bullets up his chest must have 
been what killed him. It would have been quick, and in her numbed haze 
she felt gently thankful for that. Others had not fared so well, being 
bludgeoned or crushed to death, and several had been set alight and 
stank of burnt meat. 
    
    She knelt down next to Marcus' slumped body and pulled it from the 
wall, into a tender hug. She didn't notice how it bled into her 
jumpsuit. "Thank you for trying, Marcus. I'll miss you."
    
    He had been a good and dear friend to her, she thought as she lay 
him down on the floor. In her six years of training as a maintenance 
technician, slow and difficult training, he had been one of the few 
members of the technical staff she had become real friends with. When 
they were all so busy and so consumed by their work, it was hardly 
surprising, but she wished she had made more effort to get to know 
them.
    
    So they had not managed to hold out. It wasn't their fault. She felt 
sorry for the teachers and children that would be lying dead in the 
vast amphitheatre at the end of the main hall, but she could not bring 
herself to go down there. She would not have been able to take any 
more.
    
    Then, as she trudged slowly towards the main AppleSoft Think Machine 
(tm) control room, she heard a deep voice. Two of them. 
    
    The monsters were still there.
    
    "Whut take Boss so long? We wait for hour now."
    
    From what little Abigail saw before she pulled back from the 
branching corridor, the monster that spoke was larger than the other 
two she had seen, and greener. Fully and completely green, with several 
of its crooked teeth missing, and a huge jowl and neck that bristled 
with odd wiry hairs. And it could not talk even half as well as the 
others, but held a weapon that looked much more delicate that the 
miniguns that the other two had wielded - like an oversized, carefully 
plumbed propane burner.
    
    "We are not waiting," Gazor, the brutalised one, replied, sounding 
so much more intelligent even though he was obviously in a great deal 
of pain. He looked even bloodier than when Abigail had seen him in the 
elevator. "'Boss' is not coming. He wasted his ammo, and now he is 
dead. He did not think little human knives could cut him. He was 
wrong."
    
    "Oh," the slow one replied. "Good for t'em. Boss was stupid as 
little humans. Not t'ink ahead. Whut good is vault wit' too small 
lights, and all decent t'ings used up? Was waste of time. Good to get 
out of stinging air t'ough. Never t'ought radiation ever be strong to 
sting like t'at."
    
    The monster Gazor only nodded in reply, and spat out some more blood 
that had filled his mouth. "You're right. This was all pointless."
    
    "Hey, you not look so good. You take meds now. Maybe they fix holes 
in you some?"
    
    "... I doubt it."
    
    Abigail doubted it too. The monster bled from so many holes, and 
whenever he had spoken she'd heard the blood gurgling within his lungs. 
It sounded pretty hideous, just what the bastard deserved, and from his 
reply Gazor knew it wasn't good for him. 
    
    Then Abigail heard the whirr of the minigun's six barrels winding up 
to speed. The conversation had brought her back to the real world 
again, and she began to panic. Had they found her?
    
    "Whut you..?"
    
    Then a few shots were fired, and Abigail jumped to find herself 
still alive, and still safe behind the corner of the main hall.
    
    "You not suppose to blow own brains out all over Kazal!!!" the idiot 
monster raged a moment later. "Gazor stupid! Gazor should have taken 
meds. Now more meds for Kazal. Has less holes to heal too. Now Kazal 
has vault all to self. Even if is dark and used up vault."
    
    Somehow, as the Kazal monster had talked to himself, Abigail had 
found her fear and nausea turning to rage. This was her vault. This was 
Vault 42! And they called it useless!?! They broke in and took away 
everything that she had ever cared about, and then decided it was all a 
waste of time!?!
    
    She walked away from the retarded creature with a purpose. The main 
security force had taken most of the armament, but the pointmen had 
left their sidearms for the secondary team and the few decent marksmen 
in the kitchens to arm themselves with. The main team's backup had even 
left a couple of shotguns for the secondary team to use, and just kept 
their pistols to cover their teammates with from behind. The shotguns 
were far more powerful, but too imprecise to be used properly from the 
rear line.
    
    In her dazed and dream-like state Abigail had managed to dry her 
eyes, but her tears flowed once more the moment she laid her eyes on 
Marcus and his teammates again. She couldn't look at them. Not broken 
and chewed up by the bullets like that. She just knelt down next to her 
tutor and friend, and eased the shotgun from his cool fingers. "I'm 
sorry," she whispered with a sob.
    
    And then she was gone, gun in hand. She had no idea how to use it, 
or even if it was still loaded. Could Marcus have used all, what, five 
or six shells, before he had been murdered? She could only guess that 
his death had come quickly, and the gun was still ready to use. And she 
was going to use it. She would make that mountainous green ape pay for 
destroying her precious underground world.
    
    She was blinded with rage, but she still had the presence of mind to 
stop when she came to the corridor. That monster could tear her in half 
bare handed, and it had the fire-weapon. The seemingly small crowbar it 
had played with in its other hand was probably less of a danger than 
the creature's fist itself.
    
    But it was no longer facing her. Instead it had turned to rummage in 
the sack beside it. All Abigail needed to do was move quickly and stay 
silent. Her blood thumped through her head like a jackhammer in fear 
and vengeful anticipation, but she barely made a sound as she padded 
swiftly and unnoticed up to the great green thing, and pressed the 
barrel of the gun into the back of its bald head.
    
    "Whut..?"
    
    She did not give it time to turn around, and pulled the trigger the 
second it had made that questioning sound. The bright flash of the gun 
blinded her, but worse the weapon slammed back into her with such force 
that it swung her around and flew from her hands. The trigger guard 
caught her finger painfully, but the pain that flooded her shoulder and 
chest overwhelmed that. She screamed, but both in pain and triumph. The 
creature in front of her bobbed where it sat, a gaping red crater in 
the back if its skull. Whatever brains had been inside had turned to 
mush, the shot embedding itself in the front of the monster's thick 
skull.
    
    Abigail nursed her shoulder as the thing slumped over. The heavy 
ache glowed through the right side of her chest. She didn't think it 
was broken, but she had done some sort of damage to herself, and 
bruised God knew what. And she laughed as she realised the monster's 
blood was dripping in small speckled rivulets down her face. She 
laughed so hard she began to cry. 
    
    Her pointless revenge had been carried out, and she just had to let 
out her frustration and grief before she died from it. With a final fit 
of futile energy she grabbed the crowbar from the creature's dead 
fingers and smacked it against the monster's tough hide, but that only 
made her cry harder, and seemingly did nothing to the thing's skin.
    
    After a moment the bent tool fell from her fingers and Abigail tried 
to organise herself. The main computer could still help her, so strung 
out and at her wits' end she walked down the corridor to the central 
room, trying to rub the blood from her face and chest as she went.
    
    She found the AppleSoft Think Machine (tm) still working, and 
activated its own voice command system. "Perform a vault-wide census 
scan please."
    
    The calm voice of the computer, male this time, replied. "Emergency 
user recognition system bypass is active. Please state your name and 
census designation."
    
    Whoever it was that had activated the emergency access protocols, 
Abigail thanked them. "Abigail Iseley, designation..." she paused, 
willing herself not to cry again. If she did the computer might mistake 
what she said. "... designation 'Jinx'."
    
    She never had found out who had altered her last full census 
submission, four years ago. She would have been able to change her 
identity designation back in only another five months, when the next 
full scale census was made in the new year. The normal yearly census 
and occasional birth, death and marriage submissions were always much 
smaller affairs, but a full census paper could take days to complete, 
it was so comprehensive. Right down to their sleeping patterns and 
working relationships.
    
    "Vault wide census scan initiated. Scanning. Please wait, this could 
take several minutes..."
    
    Twenty seven seconds later it spoke the results. "Possible census 
total, seven personnel."
    
    Abigail shuddered. Only seven people, out of over six hundred, on 
the most inaccurate scan. "Please remove all results based on open and 
currently accessed utilities." Then she though again. "No, cancel that. 
Please report which areas registered defined life signs, including all 
access vents and non-civilian areas."
    
    "Please wai-One area. Level ten, room zero one. Main AppleSoft Think 
Machine - trademark of AppleSoft corporation and Vault-Tec Industries - 
control room. Possible occupants, two."
    
    Abigail reached for a nearby chair before her legs gave way beneath 
her. Possible occupants... Even after telling it that she wanted a 
record of life signs and nothing else it still told her that someone 
else was accessing one of the machine's own boxy main terminals. One of 
the Overseers had logged on, no doubt, before he had left for his or 
her doomed evacuation area. Abigail had not known it was possible to 
cry so much in so short a time, but she did regardless. She was the 
only one left. No one else in the vents, or locked in a restroom 
somewhere. The computer's sensors could be temperamental and its 
reports unnecessarily vague, but never inaccurate enough to miss a life 
sign reading from a whole room or maintenance area.
    
    So, that was it, she thought. The silence was deafening. What was 
she supposed to do now? Vault 42 was... dead. She couldn't run the 
place alone, and it was full of her friends and family. She couldn't go 
into the kitchens again. She didn't know if she even had the strength 
to make it past Marcus' body again, and all that blood. She couldn't 
clean that. Not all of it. All of *them*.
    
    She rubbed the cuff of her jumpsuit against the drying smear of red 
on her cheek again, not realising it would not get any cleaner. The 
sleeve was just as stained as her skin was.

***
    
    Eventually, washed, clothed and safely isolated in the clean second 
and third levels, she realised there was nothing else to do. She would 
end up starving to death in her own vault. The kitchens on those two 
levels were clean, but she could barely set foot into one without 
seeing the blood and the bodies in her mind. And what food there was 
had been stored for mass preparation, not for one girl trying to feed 
herself.
    
    She lived on snack food for a few days but she soon found herself 
weak and getting sick from the lack of nutrition, and her few attempts 
at cooking in the giant kitchens had been disastrous, and even 
dangerous. She should have trained as a chef, not a technician. She 
might even have been good at it, if she had just learned where to 
start. None of the stores had cooking instructions, and when she 
foraged into the hydro-farms on level three she could only watch the 
plants slowly dying from lack of care. 
    
    In Vault 42, it now seemed, everyone had their part to play to keep 
them all going, and every part had been needed. After all, their 
families had lived there for almost a hundred years in a home designed 
to support only a single generation for little longer than a decade. 
She had lived a much more vulnerable life than she had ever realised.
    
    Either she wasted away in Vault 42, or she would have to do what her 
grandmother had done all those years ago. She would have to leave home. 
A home whose corpse would soon begin to fester, whose edible crops 
would wither, and whose ghosts of friends and family would surely drive 
her insane as she cried herself to sleep each night in someone else's 
empty bed. If she wanted to try and live on, no matter how slim the 
chance was on the surface, she had to leave.
    
    Abigail tried to be rational about her decision. She braved the walk 
down to level five, and to the main hospital, to stock up on 
medications, and to collect every anti-Radiation drug she could find. 
Many of them had been used up but after looking through the hospital 
records she found an almost full bottle of Rad-X pills, and enough 
RadAway drips for ten people in critical condition. She resisted the 
urge to throw the hatefully branded medicines across the hospital 
floor, and shoved them into the pack that she had taken from storage. 
No matter how many dark stories she had grown up with, and how many 
times she had read grandmother's feelings of betrayal over those names, 
those were the drugs that might allow her to survive on the outside. 
Maybe even long enough to find other human survivors. 
    
    As she packed she knew she was lying to herself. She was just 
delaying the inevitable. It would be so much easier, she knew, just to 
take one of the pistols that lay with her peoples' bodies, find her 
family in that gory mess one level down, and end it all beside them.
    
    But in Vault 42, they had been raised to believe otherwise. Ever 
since the founding of the vault as its own state, it had always been 
about survival. They would survive the betrayal of the outside world 
because they had to. They would survive against all the odds, and keep 
their vault running, because they *deserved* to survive. Coming to the 
vault could never be allowed to become a waste of all the trials and 
the work that had led them to that point.
    
    So Abigail had to try and survive. She had to be the sole heir to 
everyone's efforts, because if she died, it would all have been for 
nothing, and the first Overseer would have been proven right when he 
took his life. 
    
    And Abigail was still afraid to die. She was only nineteen years 
old. She had been legally capable since the age of sixteen, able to 
begin her vocation, but was still not a full adult in the eyes of the 
vault, or else she would not still have been tutored for those years in 
between. 
    
    She packed lightly, leaving most of her own possessions in her 
locker, which still sat at the foot of her old bunk. Instead she read 
up on what she could and should take - rope, a good knife, a supply of 
good water and long life foods - everything she could think of and 
still be able to carry without it slowing her down. That was much 
harder than she thought. For all her acrobatic training she found her 
physical strength wanting. She could lift herself up by one hand, but 
she was thin girl, and not overly tall with it. Then again, while she 
was not muscular her body was lean and well trained. What strength she 
did have would not abandon her after the first few hours of carrying 
her pack. She could practice the parallel bars for hours on end, after 
all. That had to be worth a little confidence in her staying power, as 
long as she could lift the thing.
    
    In the end, the only extraneous items she took were books. She had 
to learn how to survive, and how to be of use as more than just an 
acrobat. She could not keep the vault running alone no matter how much 
she studied - the maintenance team alone was 37 people, not including 
herself, and they rarely found themselves with time to spare on their 
shifts - but if there were people out there she would have to be able 
to offer them something. Ever since she had accidentally shorted out a 
part of the air recycling unit she had been supposed to repair her 
faith in her hard earned technical skills had plummeted. That was why 
she had needed Marcus to keep tutoring her, and why she knew she 
couldn't rely on those skills now.
    
    And she took medicines. Those would surely be highly valued on the 
radioactive surface. Stimpaks - one-use anaesthetic, antiseptic and 
clotting agent shots, which were hailed as a milestone in common 
medicine just before the war - would help her tide over any injury. 
After grabbing those she carefully selected a dozen other specific 
medicines, as well as making up what she thought would be a good first 
aid kit. Even though she knew little first aid beyond the basics.
    
    In the last of the space in her backpack, along with the bulky, 
improvised medical kit, she took what little technology she thought 
might be of use. A Geiger counter, with wireless link to her PipBoy, 
and a pistol. She took a few minutes to figure out how the Geiger 
counter worked, because finding her way out of the worst of the 
radiation above ground might be the difference between life and death 
up there.
    
    The pistol she didn't bother puzzling with. Despite what she had 
said to Marcus back then, she didn't trust herself not to blow her own 
fingers off either, but maybe it could be a good deterrent. After years 
with a nickname like Jinx, she doubted anyone would have blamed her for 
thinking that way. She marvelled at herself really. She had developed a 
real complex about it, and yet she was preparing as if she actually 
expected to find anyone up there that would take her in. As if she 
expected to survive for more than a few hours on that radioactive 
crust.
    
    So, with her two bags packed and her stomach in knots, she set off 
to die on the surface. She tried not to look at the corpses that still 
lay at the entrance to the surface elevator. It was a long walk to it 
from the two vault elevators at the other end of the brownly bloody 
hallway. Amidst the week old slaughter a yellow-green giant, wearing 
nothing but leather rags, lay face down. Unlike the bodies around it, 
the creature had yet to begin decomposing. 
    
    After everything she had lived through, and a week of haunted nights 
alone with her nightmares of blood and bullets, Abigail managed to keep 
her meagre lunch down. She kicked the body as she went past. 
"Bastards!"
    
    "Computer," she said by the blood covered door, "please activate the 
surface elevator."
    
    Abigail had made sure to disengage the lockdown, but keep her 
emergency command access active, and the door slid upwards as she had 
asked. The journey upwards was longer than she expected, but then she 
supposed her home had been buried beneath three million tons of earth. 
It gave her time to read the directions on the bottle of Rad-X pills.
    
    'Rad-X - For the prevention of irritation, poisoning, and chronic 
genome mutation from exposure to weapons grade radioactive materials 
and their after-effects. Not for use against lower grade, naturally 
occurring or medical sources of radiation. 
    
    'Directions: For average expected levels of nuclear fallout, take 
two tablets with water ten minutes before exposure to lessen or 
eliminate all negative effects. For high levels of risk, or chemically 
mixed nuclear agents, a dose of three or four pills is recommended. For 
continued protection during extended exposure, repeat the dosage every 
twelve hours, until no longer at risk. Do not use continually for more 
than ten days, as dosage beyond that time will become harmful. 
    
    'Warning: Not to be given to children under the age of 16, or women 
during pregnancy or while nursing.
    
    'Important Warning:...'
    
    Abigail gave a derisive laugh. As if the first warning hadn't been 
important, she thought, before she continued reading.
    
    'Important Warning: Exceeding dosage or duration can cause 
epidermal, oral, intestinal, urethral, rectal and stomach irritability, 
infertility, temporary or permanent blindness, liver and kidney 
failure, muscular spasms and paralysis (including heart failure), and 
temporary or permanent mental impairment. Please use responsibly.
    
    'Rad-X was provided for your safety by ChemoCorp, a radio-chemical 
and pharmaceutical subsidiary of Vault-Tec Industries.'
    
    "Yeah," she said to the bottle, pouring the pills into her hand, 
"fuck you too, Vault-Tec!" It didn't matter that Vault-Tec had been 
behind the construction of every vault in the US, and prepared 
everything within them. Right then, as far as she was concerned, the 
only thing Vault-Tec had given her that was worth its advertising was 
the PipBoy strapped to her wrist, currently displaying the readout of 
her Geiger counter and her nervous pulse on two separate halves of the 
tiny green screen. And that wasn't even their own product.
    
    As far as the pills were concerned it was safe to say that the dose 
on the bottle was worse than useless. The second team who had gone to 
the surface in her grandmothers diary had been out only half an hour, 
after taking the maximum dosage, and they still suffered through months 
of treatment for radiation poisoning, and several disabilities for the 
rest of their lives after that. After reading the plastic bottle she 
wasn't convinced that the Rad-X hadn't *caused* some of those 
disabilities, but what choice did she have?
    
    The records from the doctors that had treated those men said that to 
last the proper duration of the dose, under the levels of radiation 
those men had been subjected to, she would have to take at least seven 
pills at a time, and she would still suffer some compounding radiation 
poisoning the longer she stayed out. Maybe some of the radiation had 
corroded away in the last sixty years, but she could not bank on that.
    
    The elevator lights flickered and it lurched suddenly, causing a 
couple of the pills to fall from her nervous grasp. The capsules were 
large and fat, red on one side and white the other, with that wretched 
Rad-X logo in tiny print on each side in the opposite side's colour. 
She popped two in her mouth, all she could swallow at once, and gulped 
them down with a little water from one of her flat canteens. Then 
another two, and another two, and another two.
    
    Feeling ill after forcing them down her throat, Abigail finished the 
elevator ride with double the safe maximum dosage slowly finding its 
way through her stomach walls and into her body. She purposely sat in 
the elevator until the ten minutes were up, just to make sure she was 
doing *something* properly with the drugs, before she left for the 
vault door.
    
    Even in the abandoned upper control room, Abigail could feel a 
prickle in the air. Like the tanning machines that no-one had ever 
really used down in level eight's recreation hall. So that was what 
radiation felt like? It wasn't even as hot as the tan-beds - hardly 
anything at all when she actually thought about it. Maybe, miracle of 
miracles, the medication was working?
    
    Though she had never seen it, she recognised the vault door 
immediately as she walked down the cylindrical hall towards the outside 
world. The giant steel cog, easily twenty feet across, could be nothing 
else. It lay face down on the cavern floor, one side covered in scorch 
marks that had actually torn one of the immense teeth clean off, and 
buckled the track just enough for those muscle-bound monsters to tear 
the door from it. Even so, and even as strong as those creatures had 
been, it must have taken all four of them do manage it. It just looked 
so immensely sturdy, even lying wrecked there. Surely with a man around 
every inch of the circumference, they would not have been able to lift 
it from the floor.
    
    Then, as Abigail stepped out into the cavern, the wave of radiation 
hit her. She knew the heat of it even before feeling the sun on her 
skin. It was *hot*. In her blue and yellow-stitched jumpsuit she had 
walked into a dry sauna that sucked the air from her lungs. She looked 
at her PipBoy Geiger counter reading, and though the number made no 
sense to her, the needle pointer image was not even hovering at the 
high end of the scale. It had stuck itself fast there. And even after 
the G.E.C.K. had tried to clean up the air. 
    
    She forced herself to stagger forward into a walk, towards the ropy 
vines that lined the cave floor, just to stop herself falling over. 
That was it, she realised as she walked through the remnants of the 
Garden of Eden Creation Kit (tm)'s efforts. She was going to die.
    
    The wiry vegetation had been beaten back, by the giant monsters no 
doubt, and as she walked she saw a white lump glowing by the wall, with 
more glowing material lining the rocks above. What kind of fallout had 
been scattered here? And as she passed she realised that it was not 
metal or glowing moss, or those damnable burnt roots that criss-crossed 
back and forth. It was a body. A body that glowed as brightly as the 
light bulbs within the vault. White skin and salmon pink flesh had 
fallen from its body, and its dry, spilt blood glowed on the walls. And 
it was person shaped. Dead and decayed, but human, and not one of the 
giant monstrosities that had murdered her friends and family.
    
    There were still people out there. The exploration teams had never 
said anything about glowing bodies when they had ventured outside, and 
that body had worn rags of cloth and leather, not the remnants of a 
vault jump suit. There were people out there, but what had the 
radiation outside Vault 42 turned their dead bodies into?
    
    There were more glowing corpses at the other side of the cave, but 
Abigail did not care to see them. If she was to live she had to move, 
and keep moving, and pray that the radiation would not kill her like it 
had those poor souls before she found someone. Anyone would do. Anyone 
that could help her.
    
    So she walked towards the bright light that was the mouth of the 
cave. A light so bright that she could not even see what the outside 
world looked like. A brightness that consumed her as she experienced 
the sun for the very first time.
    
    And it hurt her gentle blue eyes. It hurt them so much that she 
closed them again, and walked viewing the sun through the glaring pink 
shield of her own eyelids. It was a new bright world that burned her 
skin and parched her throat, and whether open or shut, her poor 
sensitive eyes could see none of it.
    
    If she had to die, she hoped sincerely that it wouldn't be like 
that; blind and heavy and burning. Just once, before she died, she 
would like to see another person. Just one, who could tell her that 
humanity still lived.
    
    Then, maybe, she could die content.
    
***

To be continued...

***

Please send any comments and constructive criticism to:

nutzoide@nutzoide.net

They are always greatly appreciated, and there is no better reward for 
a writer than to hear back from the readers.

Many thanks to Peter King and Richard King for their proofreading 
assistance.

(c) Nutzoide 2008

http://www.nutzoide.net