Death Virginia (A Fallout 76 AU Set in 2086)

[Kylia Quilor]

Summary: In one timeline, nobody left Vault 76 until 2102, well after the people of Appalachia had been exterminated by the Scorched Plague... or by their own hands.

In another, someone left that Vault early - and changed the face of Appalachia forever. In the year 2086, Vault 76 opened to let one dweller out. Jessica Hayes - whatever her ego might say- didn't single handedly change the course of history, but one person can set in motion a whole new chain of events.

Maybe, just maybe, Appalachia could be saved.

---

As the Sino-American War dragged on, in China, with fighting in Alaska, China itself, and across the islands of the Pacific, more and more Americans found themselves worrying for the future. The fears of atomic annihilation grew, and even as the American Government, long divorced from whatever noble ideas it had once been rooted in, lied to the public about the state of the war, they and major companies sought to profit from the fear of the Bomb.
​

Vault-Tec was of course the most profitable and most successful company in this sphere, building over a hundred structures across the Continental United States, supposedly to shelter the best and the brightest of America when the end game. Many vaults had pre-selected groups, while others were open to anyone who could afford to pay for the waiting list.

Time and again, people were told that if the Vaults were needed, then the future of America, the rebuilding of this great nation, would lie with them.

This was, put simply, a lie.

For reasons ranging from mad science to sociopathic cruelty to simple corporate greed, as well as in cooperation with elements of the US Government that were already writing off America as it presently stood, Vault-Tec planned for the vast majority of the vaults to not be shelters to save anyone: they were to be experiments.

These experiments were almost universally deadly in their ultimate outcome, conducted with no grasp of scientific ethics, generally lacked scientific merit and had dubious rigor in their methods, at best. They usually asked questions no more sophisticated than 'what happens if we pour gasoline on a fire'.

But still, the research was planned, expense, logic and morality be damned. Though that could have been the motto of the entire country's elite by that point.

But some Vaults actually sought to do what was advertised: protect the residents and leave them able to face the wasteland. In some cases, what they would do after survival was the experiment. And some were control vaults, to serve as a baseline for testing. Or even to actually serve as a basis for rebuilding, so Vault-Tec and its partners could dominate in the aftermath.

In Appalachia, one such vault was Vault 76. The 'Tricentennial Vault' was formally announced to the country at large on July 4, 2076, and it really was to collect the best, brightest and most promising of a new American generation, and then release them into the aftermath in 25 years, once the world had recovered from the worst of the Atomic Bombs.

Placed under the leadership of an accomplished graduate of Vault-Tec University, deemed ironclad in her loyalty to Vault-Tec and their mission, Vault 76 served its purpose when, on October 23rd, 2077, the end of the world came.

In another universe, things would have proceeded as planned, the Vault Doors opened in 2102, and the inhabitants let out to rebuild Appalachia. In that year, they'd have found a region scoured of human life, haunted by the ghosts and echoes of those who failed, often despite heroic efforts. They'd have found an Appalachia overrun by monstrous winged beasts and the humans infected by their spores, turned into something... else.

But that isn't what happened. For in January 2086, the Overseer of Vault 76 was fatally injured in an accident too bizarre and unlikely to relate here, the result of Murphy's Law run amok. The inhabitants of the Vault, after much argument and some fighting, elected a new Overseer from among their own as January moved into February.

But it was as a result of this change in leadership that history changed. For someone left the Vault, despite the official plan.

And that someone would change Appalachia forever. One way or another.

February 6th​, 2086
Common Area, Vault 76

Vault 76 was officially rated for a capacity of 1000 people. 926 people had been on the official list of those who were to be brought into the Vault at the first sign of the bombs going off anywhere else. Appalachia was expected to be a late target of the Chinese, if they targeted it at all, so it was assumed they'd have time, warning – probably when bombs hit D.C., if nothing else.

Of that 926, 834 had actually made it to the Vault before they'd sealed it. Surprisingly good, given the panic that had consumed the roads as soon as the news of the bombs went live – though many of the residents had been alerted sooner… or outright grabbed by government officials or Vault-Tec goons, before the bombs had actually hit their targets, or had hit the news (she wasn't sure which).

And of course, some people were already near the Vaults anyway – why put distance between yourself and the only safe place you had, in case the end of the world really came?

834 people. And, remarkably, until three weeks ago, no deaths. 11 Births, and about a half-dozen more pregnancies that she knew of.

None of the kids were older than seven, so none of them could vote. That had left 833 people in the Vault capable of voting after the death of the Overseer.

Jessica Hayes stared at the vote totals on the screen in front of her.

Richard Villanueva – 397
Jessica Hayes – 341
Nicholas Volkmer – 71
Jake Walker – 12
Ineligible Votes – 4

How?!

She'd run one of the best political campaigns that was possible in this place. Granted, running for Overseer of a closed-off vault was hardly the same thing as becoming manager of Abigale Poole's election campaign to the West Virginia House and giving her the sort of overwhelming victory and political mandate politicians dream of, but -

She'd always figured there was a chance this day would come, and had gone out of her way to court the Overseer, knowing that the 329 Vault-Tec University graduates among Vault 76's population all held the Overseer in high regard. She had friends in every major department of the Vault, knew at least something about almost every single job that got done in the Vault, had earned a lot of good favor over the years helping people out, and she – she-

I ran the better campaign! I know I had more than 341 people committed to voting for me?! I have the damn lists!

Okay, fine, Villanueva was always going to win the majority – by a wide margin – of the former US Military or Federal Government employees in the Vault. He was one of the few residents of the Vault that hadn't been in his early to mid-twenties coming in. And he'd served as Chief of Staff of the White House, worked in a major corporation with close ties to the Federal Government…

So yeah, the majority of that bloc of 197 people had definitely been his, but -

I can't believe a plurality of this Vault would vote for him. He was in his late 50s now, stodgy, conservative, stand-offish, and represented everything she'd come to hate about the American Government in the last ten years before the bombs had dropped. And while she'd never expected most of her fellow 76ers to agree on that last part, it wasn't as though his ideas – such as they were – were any good, or all that relevant.

Communist infiltration was hardly a threat! They needed to be worried about ways to keep the Vault running, ideas on how to prepare to rebuild when they got back to the surface, not getting ready to fight Chinese occupiers of fucking Appalachia when Reclamation Day came.

Even if those Red bastards actually invaded the US after the bombs dropped – assuming they survived the counter-strike we'd almost certainly give them – there's… there's no chance they're invading Appalachia for Christ's sake!

Jessica stared at the screen, as if willing the numbers to change, but even if the few people who hadn't voted did, and they all voted for her… it wouldn't change anything.

Volkmer. Not all of the Chief Maintenance Technician's voters would have voted for her if he'd left the race like she'd tried to get him to, but… enough would have! That asshole Walker's little clique wouldn't have done anything but vote for him.

As she stared at the vote returns, unchanging, she tried to tamp down on the suspicion that Villanueva had done something. That he'd… rigged the vote somehow. Or screwed up the counting. She had no proof. And she couldn't -

The Vault was too small for something like that to be gotten away with, right? She was still convinced more than one election in the last six years before the bombs had dropped had been rigged – the same corporatist ultra-war hawks winning over and over again, despite the riots and the stalemate in Anchorage (until it had finally been liberated) and their increasing unpopularity across the country. Governor Evans – she'd eat a bullet before she actually believe there'd been no shenanigans in his election three years before the end of the world.

He gets caught stealing money from the treasury with the sloppiest embezzlement ever, and gets away, the Commonwealth-wide manhunt only ending because the Chinese Communist Party decided to kick the table over and end the game in the worst possible way.

No one won global thermonuclear war. The fact that Vault-Tec hadn't communicated with them at all, the fact that there'd been no messages from any sort of surviving elements of the US government or the Commonwealth government or the State government, the military -

Anything that has survived was in no condition for America to have 'won' the nuclear exchange, and she could hardly believe the Chinese were any better off.

With any luck, the survivors will spend the next hundred years doing a rerun of one of their warring states periods, and a new Dynasty will rise up. And isn't that the kicker – I'm rooting for a goddamn monarchy to win something.

Jessica had always considered herself a proud American, a lover of democracy, capitalism, apple pie, baseball, everything. And she was.

But she'd also seen where the Country had been going, after the war started.

Oh, the problems went back further, she knew – she'd studied her history, read the banned books, talked to idealistic adults and elderly people – but it was the war, and everything that had come with it, that had ruined everything. She'd hoped, like a lot of people, that things would get better, once the war started winding down, once it really ended. The liberation of Anchorage had seemed like a great sign.

She'd gone into political activism, and then helping to manage campaigns, leading to her running Poole's 2076 campaign at the tender age of 24, because she'd known it would take work to bring back all the things they'd lost, but she'd never been afraid of hard work.

Jessica shook her head. None of that was relevant.

She'd lost the election.

"Well, Overseer Villanueva, congratulations on your victory," she said, turning to the older man, extending a hand. "It seems you won fair and square."

"And you gave me a tough fight," Villanueva said, in that 'you can trust me' pseudo-charming politician voice he always put on. "I guess Vault-Tec knew what they were saying when they called you one of the finest rising political minds of your day," he accepted her hand, giving it a vigorous, firm shake. "I'll be honest," he said in a stage-whisper, leaning forward, playing to the crowd here in the common area as much as trying to win her personally over.

More to the crowd, really, she had to guess.

"I'll be honest," he said again, a surefire sign a man wasn't being honest for her money, "when I put my name forward to become the new Overseer, I expected I'd have this whole thing in a walk, but you ran an impressive campaign, and you've proven that you have the sort of mind and dedication to help this Vault continue to thrive in the future."

"I certainly like to think I do," Jessica agreed. "And you ran a clearly successful and very capable campaign yourself." She added, choosing her words carefully. It had been… unimaginative, to say the least, but it had been effective. He must have understood her fellow 76ers better than she had thought. Just enough to eke out his win, anyway.

"Well, take it from me, you do," Villanueva confirmed, grinning widely, doing a very good job of sounding genuine. "That's why I'd like to offer you the position of Vice-Overseer. If there's one thing the death of my predecessor proved, it's that even in here, anything can happen, and I'd like to make sure we have someone in place to stand in, if god forbid, something happens to me."

He chuckled, "I think you'll agree the way a lot of things have stalled while we did the election isn't ideal."

Jessica hated to admit it, but he was right about that. "True."

She looked into Villanueva's eyes, but it was impossible to get a clear read on the offer. How genuine was it, how much of a trap was it? She was going to remain his biggest rival for popular support going forward, bringing her into his 'administration', naming her his number two person would definitely win a lot of her voters over.

The Vault wasn't exactly a checks and balances sort of Democracy though, so how much did it really matter to him?

Enough. The Vice Presidency wasn't worth a warm bucket of spit, according to the old saying, and the same was probably true about being Vice Overseer, but there was a chance she could use the position. Was it worth giving him her public support?

If she said no, would that erode her support?

All these questions ran through Jessica's head quickly, and she debated saying no, even debated saying no as bluntly and rudely as possible, expressing exactly how she felt about her opponent and his plans for the Vault.

All those resources he's going to waste on making more weapons from the industrial feed-stock, and the time wasted 'training' everyone to 'fight the Chinese', once we leave. Sweet mother of fucking mercy do I really want to have to put up with that crap? With his crap?

But it really wasn't a choice, was it? She had to say yes.

"I'm honored you'd trust me with such a position. I accept, and I look forward to working with you, Overseer." She pasted a smile on her face as she said it – Villanueva wasn't the only one who could pull that stupid trick.

February 12th​, 2086
Overseer's Office, Vault 76

Hell, even a warm bucket of spit is overpriced, it seems.

Jessica hadn't really expected she'd have much chance to really convince Villanueva to focus resources on preparing for going out into Appalachia – rad survival drills, and how to purify water without the equipment here, how to organize the survivors that might still be out there… Those were all things the last Overseer had started them on. There'd been plans for round table discussion groups about things such as theories about how best to do power generation out there, how to salvage things, theorizing about the state of the world – how badly would things have collapsed?

There were a lot of theories about how things would have gone? Complete anarchy, everyone dying off in an orgy of violence? Small scattered groups of survivors out for their own? Communities rebuilding? Maybe even a survival of some sort of centralized government in Appalachia, centered around surviving government or military officials?

A lot of theories and possibilities.

The fact that neither Vault-Tec nor the Federal Government had contacted them at all in the last eight and a half years proved that the most optimistic scenarios, that the bombardment wouldn't cause a complete collapse in central communications and organized government were wrong.

There'd been some hope, Jessica knew, that enough of the government would have made it out, gotten to safety, that enough of the military could have retained cohesiveness that maybe, just maybe, the USA would still exist after the bombs dropped.

Clearly not.

But Villanueva wasn't interested in actually finding out what had happened. No. He was so sure they needed to be prepared to resume the war against the Communists.

Acting quickly, from the moment he'd formally been sworn in as Overseer, he'd shut down most of the workshops already in place, and shut down every plan in the works for more. Nope. Time to prepare for communists. Oh, and of course, just in case a Chinese Spy had gotten into the Vault, there were new, more stringent searches to be implemented of people's quarters.

Thankfully, that one seemed to be getting real push back from the population, and security was hard pressed to force the issue. It had distracted and divided them.

Which was how she'd managed to break into the Overseer's office. There wasn't anyone posted in front of the door, and the one guy on patrol had been easy enough for her and her compatriot to sneak by.

Jessica wasn't really sure what her plan was. Villanueva was caught up in a meeting that she wasn't supposed to know about (not that he'd invited her to any of the 14 secret meetings he'd had in the six days since he'd taken over. She knew about them, but unfortunately, none of her friends or allies – mysteriously – had been in any of the meetings.

She wasn't sure what she was after, honestly. Something she could use against Villanueva. Anything that could convince him that maybe, just maybe, he needed to rein it in.

Or else, of course.

"How did you learn to spoof the door like that?" Casey asked quietly, as they slipped into the office, the door quickly going back down behind them.

"Enough people lock themselves out of utility closets or into utility closets or stuff like that," Jessica replied. And if you volunteered for all the little jobs no one wanted, you picked up a few things. Granted, she hadn't expected it to be useful for this, but…

"All the locks here work on the same principles." She added.

"The things you miss when you're stuck in the kitchen department all day," Casey grumbled. Her closest friend in the Vault had a degree on culinary science, and was the second highest ranking person in the Kitchen department, helping to plan and cook meals for the whole Vault, liaising with the hydroponics and medical departments on availability and the dietary needs of everyone.

But she didn't get many chances to do much outside of her field of focus, whereas Jessica had always been a bit of a floater, filling in wherever she was needed.

"You're doing God's work, making some of the stuff you have to work with edible," Jessica assured Casey. She bit her lip, looking around. Villanueva hadn't wasted his time making the office feel more 'his'. The framed degrees and awards on the wall were all his. He'd brought in some of the personal items from his old room, it looked like, items she didn't recognize from anytime she'd been here before arranged on the desk.

She was a little surprised spoofing the electronic lock here had been as easy as doing it on utility closets, but now she was in here and…

She didn't know where to start.

"Check the file cabinets… see if there's anything that… I don't know. Anything that seems out of place, or new, or I dunno, a folder labeled 'My Evil Plan to Steal the Election'."

"You don't really think he stole the election somehow?" Casey protested, even though she moved over to the cabinet, experimentally testing one drawer to see if it was locked. It wasn't. Casey looked back at her, eyes wide. "Villanueva is an ass, but he wouldn't do anything like that. Besides if you had any reason to suspect… you'd have said something, right?"

"I have no good reason, just… a gut feeling." Jessica shook her head. "There's nothing I could have said that wouldn't have made me sound like a sore loser."

"You're breaking into his office to find something you can threaten or blackmail him with." Casey countered, rolling her eyes just a little. "I think the 'sore loser' ship has sailed."

"I'm doing this for the Vault, the man's – he's going to waste so many resources and so much manpower on this fixation of his!" Jessica insisted, ignoring the little voice in the back of her head.

She went to the terminal, hooking her Pipboy up to it, breaking past its security after filtering her way through the junk data to pick out Villanueva's password.

There were several headings, including 'Journal Entries' and 'Project Drafts'. A quick look into both suggested that he'd just imported his journal and other files from his old terminal in his old quarters. Too many entries to look through now. One thing that did catch her eye was a whole section labeled 'Previous Owner Archive'. All the files from the old Overseer. She looked through the other file headings, and realized there were none of the files she'd have expected to see, stuff from Vault-Tec. But the Overseer had said Vault-Tec left all sorts of contingency instructions? She remembered that conversation.

Did Villanueva just toss it all into that file archive? Did that idiot not even check to see if there was anything important there?

Maybe I can find something I can use to convince everyone else this is a bad idea.

She accessed the archive, waiting for it to load up, quickly scanning through the subject headings, the filenames…

And then one caught her eye. Namely because of the words 'CONFIDENTIAL – OVERSEER'S EYES ONLY' on it, and a notation on the file data that suggested that if Villanueva hadn't just chucked it all into a file archive, it would have been protected by another password.

For a moment she debated – this wasn't what she was here for.

But curiosity killed the cat.

CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDENTIAL
OVERSEER EYES ONLY | VIOLATION VTP-01076

Twenty-five (25) years after the Vault Doors close, you are to prepare your citizens to leave Vault 76 entirely and begin a process called "Reclamation." Specifics will be disseminated automatically as that time approaches.

After Reclamation Day, you are personally ordered to find and secure the three nuclear silos in West Virginia code-named ALPHA, BRAVO, and CHARLIE. If these sites are still nuclear capable ensure no one except Vault-Tec can access or launch nuclear ordnance.

To be clear, even if there are other authorities (whether government, militia, or otherwise) their claims are to be ignored. Vault-Tec alone maintains jurisdiction.​

What the FUCK?

Nuclear silos in Appalachia?

Why would- why would anyone put a silo here?

Because no one would suspect it? The answer supplied itself.

But the rest of it – questions ran through her mind, and she tried to think of good answers.

"Casey, get over here, look at this," she gestured to the screen, and Casey turned away from the drawer she was looking through and moved quickly over towards the desk, coming around quietly. Jessica shifted to give Casey a good view of the screen, and her friend stared, mouth slowly opening into an 'O' as she read.

"Since when are there nuclear silos in West Virginia?"

"Well, they wouldn't advertise their locations, would they?" Jessica pointed out. "They'd want to keep them secret. But they have to be really well hidden, because I've heard nothing about them. Not even Treasure of Appalachia-style rumors." Everyone had heard those. The stories that the Government was hiding something really important somewhere in or around West Virginia, in the event of a nuclear war. Something valuable. Something secret.

But the rumors tended to be insane – alien technology, clones of government officials, mind control machines. The sort of stuff those Free States lunatics talked about.

Hell, no, even the Free States don't talk about aliens and stuff.

"But that's not the point. What business does a corporation like Vault-Tec have with saying 'we should own nuclear silos?'" Jessica added. "That – that's – I mean, to the point of ignoring the government? Any government?"

"Is there even a government left out there to take control of them?" Casey inhaled slowly after she said that, the action sounding strained.

"Is there even a Vault-Tec corporation left to do anything with them?"

"If the CEOs and other execs aren't in a Vault somewhere, I'll eat my hat."

"You don't wear hats," Jessica held back a smile, Casey's smirk always one of her most annoyingly attractive features. She shook her head, gesturing back at the screen. "And fine, maybe the company's leadership is alive somewhere, but they're clearly cut off from communication with the other vaults. And there may not be a government out there, maybe, but I – do you trust Villanueva with those silos, if they still work?"

Casey stared at Jessica, eyes wide, mouth open, making a few horrified sounds and then, "No. I – no. Not even close."

He'd launch them at China or something, and for fuck's sake if anyone even survives over there, there's no point in nuking them 25 years after the war ends! Especially if someone over there had nuclear missiles to fire back with. And knowing how obsessed Villanueva was, he'd be willing to…

Jessica shook her head. She didn't even want to imagine what he'd do.

Then a horrifying thought hit her.

"This is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for, proof this idiot isn't doing his job right, but we can't – I can't – we can't let him know about this." Jessica gaped wordlessly, trying to finish her thought.

"It's on his computer. He'll see it eventually, right?"

"Not if we delete the file." Jessica copied it to her Pipboy, interrupting her copying of Villanueva's other files, and then deleting the original file. The whole process took longer than she'd have liked – the computer rejected several of her attempts and she had to break out every trick she'd ever heard of for computers to try to get it to work.

Jessica was no programming expert, just an enthusiastic amateur. She could think of several people who could have done this faster, but…

If he hadn't removed the password on this file, it would have been a lot harder to get rid of.

By the time she was done, her eyes darted to the clock on the wall.

"Shit!" She scrambled to disconnect her pipboy from the terminal, gesturing to Casey to close up all the drawers. There was no more time.

Because Villanueva was going to be back in this office inside of seven minutes, and they needed to be well away from here.

What she'd gotten from his journal entries had to be enough to find something to rein him in.

February 20th​, 2086
Entrance, Vault 76

"I want it on the record that you are absolutely insane!" Sandy said as Jessica got off the elevator. "And I'm even more insane for agreeing to help you!"

"I'm running on sleep deprivation, too much Nuka-Cola and I'm about three levels of conspiracies theories down the rabbit hole," Jessica snapped. She'd only slept a few hours each the last few nights, between worry that she and Casey would be caught for their B&E, reading through Villanueva's insufferably smug journal entries, worrying about those silos and why Vault-Tec wanted them, and every stupid, insane, short-sighted design Villanueva was making…

Just yesterday he started burning books.

Well, feeding them to the garbage incinerator. Books that weren't even banned before the war.

She took a deep breath. "Sorry." She took another breath. "I – I know this is stupid. There's so many ways this could go wrong. But I can't just stay here for the next 16 years waiting for Villanueva and his goons to get control of nuclear silos. Or put up with him running this place in the meantime. And the other choice is to start a civil war in the Vault, and that's… that's an even worse idea."

"I'm not so sure it is." Sandy admitted quietly. "But he's got the Security Chief and too many of the ex-military types on his side, most of the weapons… if we planned it right though..." she bit her lower lip for a moment.

"I'm not going to get dozens or even hundreds of people killed over this." She really had let herself run away with conspiracy theories, that Villanueva knew all along, and that he'd rigged or otherwise messed with the election with other Vault-Tec appointees in the vault, like the Security Chief, to make sure no one who wasn't establishment ended up in control of the silos.

She thought about all the weird absences by government officials in the days leading up the bombing – the President being in an undisclosed place with the fear of nukes being so high was understandable, if cowardly

What if the Treasure of Appalachia was real? What if it was the Silos? Or something else?

The Free Staters had never trusted Vault-Tec, and it wasn't like Jessica had ever thought of them as anything other than a corporation out to make a buck – even Vault 76 was that, a showpiece, paid for by the government rather than the residents booking slots, an advertising gimmick.

She'd accepted the slot when offered because she'd…

Because she'd decided surviving a nuclear apocalypse was worth the risk.

And she'd always figured the Free Staters were nuts when it came to Vault-Tec, and they took their distrust of the government way too far, but -

That was before she found out the corporation was trying to get it's hands on nukes. Which made her second-guess everything.

And so here she was, a backpack on her back stuffed with as many supplies, radiation meds and other things she might need – including a 10mm pistol Sandy had helped her get out of the security armory, and some ammunition – along with a Portable Shelter – a highly compressed, collapsible little structure that could be expanded into a durable, if small, structure, and then collapsed back down. One of Vault-Tec's most impressive inventions, a recent innovation, the first run of them sent to Vault 76 just weeks before the bombs dropped, from what she understood.

If that's even true. Maybe they told that to all the Vaults?

And so, probably out of paranoia and sleep deprivation, shed hit on this wonderful plan.

Go out there, and find those nuclear silos herself and… something? Find out what things were like on the surface – all they had was working Geiger counters monitoring the outside, which said that background radiation in the air was within acceptable limits, even if not ideal.

I'll probably knock ten years off my life expectancy, if mutant tribes of cannibal raiders don't rip my rib cage out and wear it as a hat. Assuming those were a thing.

She'd find out, restore the external radio connection to the Vault, message back… her friends and allies could break out if need be, or…

"And then what? You're one woman. You can't take control of military installations all on your own? What if there is a government out there, and we just can't receive their messages? Or, you know, all the worst projections happened and the places is overgrown by giant mutant bugs and psychotic drug-addled cannibals?" Sandy demanded.

She crossed her arms, "Not to mention the fact that even if we go with you having gotten the drop on me and knocked me out, I'm losing my cushy gig as guard at the entrance. I love this. I get to be alone for eight hours at a time." She sighed, lowering her arms to her sides. "In this place, that's precious."

"I – I don't know." Jessica admitted. "I – this plan is missing steps, I know, but I – I have to do this. I just… I can't ask anyone else to do this, and if I stay here any longer, I'm going to either go mad or strangle that fucking bastard. Maybe both. And… at the last meeting we had, one of Villanueva's cronies suggested sending someone outside the Vault to 'scout'. He shot it down, but he gave me a really thoughtful look while he said it."

She wouldn't put it past him to find a way to make her the scout, and then conveniently her Pipboy would somehow be locked out from returning or… something.

"Pretty sure that's just a combination of sleep deprivation and your messiah and savior complexes talking." Sandy suggested. "I like you, I voted for you, and you'd make an infinitely better Overseer than Villanueva, but Jessica, you are an egotistical megalomaniac on your best day. You just happen to manifest it by thinking it's your sole duty to save the world at the cost of your own health, mental or otherwise. And of course, that no one else is capable of doing what only you can do."

Shut up, shut up, shut up, Jessica thought insistently, ignoring both Sandy and the nagging feeling her friend was right.

"Remind me why a girl working on Psychology Doctorate ended up in Vault Security?"

"Because I can shoot better than almost everyone in this Vault apart from most of the former military types, and the position of Therapist is already taken by Professor Dayton." Sandy drawled.

Sandy pinched the bridge of her nose. "I am going to regret this on so many levels, and you're going to regret this on more, but if you're going to do it, now's the time. Jam the elevator, knock me out, and open the door. Last chance to back out."

Jessica inhaled, closing her eyes.

An age and a half later, she opened then again, shaking her head. "No. I'm not backing out. It's time to see how badly West Virginia got nuked."

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Readers of the original Quest may see some familiar pieces of dialogue and description here and there, interspersed as there was not much reason to repeat legwork on certain bits.

---

February 20th​, 2086
Outside Vault 76

Jessica had tried her best not to have preconceptions about what she'd find when she got outside. All she'd really been able to tell was that the exterior radiation, while higher than idea, was within acceptable limits. She'd popped a RadX after pressing the button to open the vault door just enough to get out and prayed that she wasn't going to be met by a horde of mutant cannibal zombies or giant radioactive bugs trying to get in, that she wasn't about to doom the entire vault.

The first thing she saw as the door opened and she raced through the opening as soon as it was big enough, was the light of the setting sun. And that light was bright enough, her eyes so unused to sunlight that she immediately threw up her arm, shading her face, closing her eyes, hissing in surprise like some vampire from a bad horror movie.

"Jesus fucking Christ why didn't I try to get sunglasses?!" Jessica demanded of herself, looking down at the ground, blinking more, shaking her head, cursing her lack of foresight.

The next thing she noticed was that it was cold. Which she had expected, given that it was February. Her Vault Suit was insulated, and where she had it, it was at least not too bad. But her hands and face were hit with an unexpected chill – objectively, Jessica could tell it wasn't so bad, but after 8 years of climate control in the vault…

She shivered, shaking. She had gloves, a warm hat, she'd packed for this, but -

Before she did anything else, she finally took the chance to look around.

The first thing she saw was that there were no dead bodies piled up out front of the Vault. No one had died trying to get into the Vault after the bombs dropped, at least. The Vault had been situated out a couple hours from Flatwoods, built inside of a large hill, forest and wilderness all around it, beyond the roads, the car park, a few bits and pieces. She could see green – evergreen trees. A lot of other trees had no leaves, but it was the 'no leaves' of 'it's winter' not 'the tree is dead forever'

Another theory ruled out.

Not surprising though. Appalachia was never expected to get hit with that many nukes.

There were even plants growing between cracks in the worn, faded stones of the front step… area. She looked down, ahead to the Tricentennial Arch, the steps she'd run up to get to the Vault, the sirens blaring, the madness, the rush -

Jessica closed her eyes again, taking a breath. She couldn't linger on her memories of that awful day. Not now.

Not ever.

Taking off her backpack, Jessica quickly opened it, rooting around, those gloves were in here -

"Hey! Hey you, up at the vault!" A voice called out from somewhere below, and Jessica froze. She started to straighten up, hand going to her pistol as she saw a figure – a man, African American – down below at the second landing, in front of the Tricentennial sign. How had she missed him earlier? She couldn't make out many details at this distance, but he did look like he had some sort of weapon slung over his back, maybe?

Keeping one hand on her pistol she waved at him.

"Uh… Hey?"

Some expert communicator you are, holy shit Jessica what the fuck? Jessica pushed her self-effacing comments to the back of her mind and moved for the stairs, heading down to the Tricentennial Arch. As she got closer, she got a better look at the man.

That was indeed a weapon on his back, it looked like a rifle of some kind – she didn't know her guns very well – but it also looked like it was made of scrap metal, pipes and just… wood? Something about it rang a bell for Jessica, something about a black market in weapons made from stuff like that? But she wasn't sure if she was remembering right or –

Either way, it suggested a few things about the state of the world out here. The patched, worn and faded clothes he wore – the shirt might have once been a blue dress shirt, the pants were maybe khaki at one time, but it was genuinely hard to tell now – also told her something. Namely, that the most hopeful projections were definitely not the case.

Still, the guy looked reasonably healthy, though his skin was weather-beaten, as she got closer, and he didn't seem to be covered in cancerous lumps or open sores or… any sign he was some kind of crazy mutant, so…

The man was shaking his head slowly, mouth open in surprise and wonderment as she came down the stairs. He pinched himself. "What kind of odds is it that the last day of my watch, someone actually comes out after eight years and change? Maria's been sending people up here for years, but nobody-" he cut himself off, shaking his head.

Now that she was on the lower landing, just about ten feet from him, she could also see he had an armband around his wrist – blue fabric with a red heart.

Watch. Send. The armband. All of that suggested organization, hierarchy, a command structure. Someone with enough resources and manpower to send someone to watch a Vault that might or might open…

"Any more of you coming out?" He asked, looking up towards the Vault door, which had already closed by now. He didn't look upset, or angry… fingers crossed this wasn't about trying to invade the Vault to loot it.

Jessica shook her head, "No. Just me."

The man blinked, "So you just… strolled out of your Vault? Your nice, safe vault where there's no radiation, no raiders, no mutants, plenty of food and clean water and just… came out here?" He stared, "The hell's wrong with your Vault that out here seems better?" He laughed, incredulous.

Raiders and mutants. And the mention of plenty of food and clean water. This man didn't seem like he was severely lacking in either, based on her own inexpert opinion. But that mention suggested that food scarcity and lack of clean water were at least viable prospects now. And raiders? Mutants? Were cannibal mutant tribes actually a thing or something? Just not here?

"It's… it's a long story." Jessica said after a moment, exhaling slowly, removing her hand from her pistol. She didn't know this man, hardly knew if she could trust him with… anything, let alone the nuclear silos. Not that she actually even had the first idea of how to find the damn things. She'd made some notes, some theories, but that's all it was.

Worry about that once I have some idea of the lay of the land. The closest town was Flatwoods, so her plan had been to head down there one way or the other, unless this guy had other plans.

"The short version is there was a power struggle inside the Vault, and I lost." That was… accurate, but misleading. But it might engender sympathy.

The man's eyes widened, "You got kicked out?"

"Close enough, yeah." Jessica said, "Like I said, it's –"

"A long story." He waved a hand, "You want to keep it close to the chest, I'm okay with that, but Dassa will probably want more, once we get back to Flatwoods." He blinked, then laughed, "Assuming you're willing to come back with me, anyway. I'm not here to force you or anything."

"I mean… I was planning on heading to Flatwoods anyway, figured that'd be the place to get the lay of things…" Jessica said carefully. The man seemed to be on the level, and he'd made no moves towards his weapon. So she was tentatively going to assume he was friendly. "My name's Jessica, Jessica Hayes," she held out a hand, "And I'm clearly missing a lot more than just your name."

The man laughed, one hand taking hers and shaking it, the other rubbing the back of his head. He had short hair – messy, untamed, but cut short roughly and inexpertly.

"There's a kinda sorta script I'm supposed to be following, but I gotta admit, never expected to actually use it," he admitted, sounding just a touched sheepish, looking at the ground a moment. Then he faced her again. "I'm Paul Leibowitz. Responder, First Class, based out of Flatwoods."

"Good to meet a friendly face, and not…"

"Cannibal mutant zombies and giant bugs?" Paul asked. "I watched sci-fi movies before the end of the world too you know."

Now it was Jessica's turn to laugh ruefully, "Fair enough."

"Now, we do have mutants and giant bugs and zombies out here," Paul said, "Used to have cannibals, but thank god those sick bastards all got killed." He said all of that so casually, just dropping the mentions of them into the conversation like –

What the-

Her racing thoughts must have shown on her face, and Paul held up his hands, "As long as you know what you're doing, and where you're going, this part of Appalachia is pretty safe." He said confidently. Jessica didn't feel reassured. "Look, I've got some shelter just down the hill, along with food and water. It'll be night soon, and you don't want to be wandering around after dark when you don't know where you're going." He gestured down the hill. "I'll try to fill you in on everything that's happening in Death Virginia these days."

Jessica cleared her throat, "Death Virginia?" Really didn't raise her confidence in his claim this part of Appalachia was safe.

"Well, it's sure a hell of a lot more deadly than it was back before the Chinese dropped a bunch of bombs on us, and everything else that's happened the last eight years," Paul observed. "But… you take it a day at a time, and today's close to ending."

Jessica swallowed. She'd had her mental breakdowns about the end of the world, psychologically prepared herself for everyone she'd ever known outside the Vault being dead by the time she came out, she…

She'd prepared for this. She could handle this. She had to.

The stakes were too high. She was not allowed to fail. All her friends and allies in the Vault would need her again, and – and –

She had to find those silos and…

I can't blow them up, but maybe I can sabotage them, so they can never fire? Or – I don't know I can – just knowing where they were would be the first step in stopping Villaneuva from getting his hands on them.

One thing at a time. One day at a time.

"…yeah, that… that's probably a good idea." Jessica let out a long breath, sagging a little. She'd worked herself up for the worst, and so far…

So far, she wasn't facing it. Thank God.

"Okay. Lead the way, and fill me in."

Paul nodded and started down the hill, through the arch, Jessica going after him, rubbing her hands together as she realized she hadn't actually put on those gloves, the chill air getting to her all over again.

"The outpost's not the best insulated, but it's got a firepit, so you'll get warmed up a bit, at least," Paul told her, noticing the motion.

"That's good. Really should have put the gloves on first, before I left. Hat too. Packed both – I just – didn't think everything through."

"If they kicked you out or anything like it, you probably didn't have much time. Panic fucks us all up," Paul shrugged. "Anyway, so, filling you in, let me try to actually go by the script. I'm a Responder – we're… I hate to fucking say it, but we're the closest thing to a government the western half of Appalachia has."

"…you hate to say it?"

"Because we're – we're not supposed to be a government. We weren't, at first. They weren't, anyway. I joined up after – after the bombs dropped, there was panic, riots, looting, suicides – so many people died, and starvation, freezing during the winter…" he trailed off, voice getting distant, reminding her a bit of veterans talking about their time during the worst battles of the Sino-American War.

He shook his head, "Things were crazy, after – I'm sure you thought about what it was like? Everything you imagined, but worse. We got lucky – only a few nukes, none on the major cities… mostly just the ones," he snapped his fingers, searching for the right word, "the ones that blow up in the sky and spread rads."

"Airburst?"

"That sounds right." Paul shook his head. "But even with Charleston still being around and a lot of people still being alive right after… there was no Governor, the State Senate Majority Leader was missing, eventually Speaker Poole managed to put together an emergency government, out of Charleston."

"She did? Is she – I worked with Speaker Poole. I –" This could be the perfect place to start. She'd have an in with someone in –

Closest thing to government…

"What happened – what happened to the Emergency Government?" She asked. "What happened to Speaker Poole?"

"David Fucking Thorpe happened." Paul snarled, a sudden anger in his voice. Then he forced himself to take a breath. "Let me keep taking it from the top?"

"Right, keep going." Jessica felt her throat go tight, the moment of hope – Poole had been one of the best people she knew, and if she had been in charge here, then Jessica really could have – she could have…

"The Responders formed pretty sooner after everything went to hell. Cops, Firefighters, Emergency Medical Techs, just… people who wanted to help. I joined up after about six months, volunteering to help – couldn't exactly keep being a cashier at Super-Duper Mart, and I had to do something. We all did. Organized food distribution, water purification, medical triage – the former cops had to put themselves to work fighting looters and pillagers and then the goddamned raiders," He snarled again. David Thorpe was a raider then? That would make sense.

Why did the name David Thorpe ring a bell?

"…it was hard. I'm skipping over a lot, but – we were making it. The Responders were helping keep everything together, the Charleston Emergency Government was… it was something, kind of. We were working with Harper's Ferry and even the Free Staters," he scoffed, "They're still more than a bit crazy, but all their preparations – weapons, food, seeds, everything – sure counted for a lot. Made contact with this group of former soldiers in the Cranberry Bog… I thought things were looking good. Like we might actually make it through everything."

"It wasn't like there weren't problems, the raiders, radiation is giving us all slow cancer or whatever, even when we had enough food it was bland, but it was food, started seeing mutant monsters and – but…"

He trailed off, and Jessica swallowed, trying to process.

Sounds like things were going well. Like… really well? As well as it can when thousands die because of winter and food shortages, but…

"Christmas, 2082. Poole announced that the Emergency Government was going to hold elections next year, we were going to… figure out something permanent." Paul stopped walking, inhaling and turning to face her. "There was some push back from those assholes who were in Governor Evans' party, but with most of their rich asshole backers hiding or dead or gone or not rich anymore since cash didn't matter, it only helped them so much. So Poole announced a big party, Christmas Eve. Celebrated an end to rationing – everything was… going along."

He swallowed, and Jessica tensed, guessing the other shoe was dropping. Paul blinked repeatedly, "A few days before Christmas, the Raiders attacked Summersville, and the leader of the group was taken prisoner. From what I hear – I was clear all the way in Grafton at the time… so pissed I was gonna miss the party –" Paul tensed, taking another breath, "The leader of the attack was David Thorpe's girlfriend or mistress or whatever."

"Why is David Thorpe? Some kind of Raider Boss?"

"The Raider boss. He used to be the CEO of Arktos Pharma, was at that Ski Resort, Top of the World, when the bombs dropped. All the rich bastards there decided to become the worst fucking monsters you've ever heard of – raping, chem-addicted, murdering, pillaging psychopaths. Some even went cannibal as their main thing, but they're all dead now." Paul was shaking now, his words surprisingly calm, managing to keep himself from snarling, but it didn't take a genius communicator like her to know how much he hated Thorpe.

Cannibalism is a terrible survival strategy, long-term. Those round table discussions about rebuilding after they left Vault 76 had covered that one pretty early, the logistical, practical and health reasons why cannibalism was a really bad idea, unless there was literally no other choice.

The reminder of the fact that he was the guy who had run Arktos Pharma had shaken a few errant remembered details loose – he was a hardass, a fan of mass layoffs and hostile takeovers. Tax advantages had seen him move to Appalachia like, ten years before the bombs dropped? What little she remembered of him, knew of him – she'd have never guessed he'd become some 'Raider' like out of a bad sci-fi story, but…

Greedy, selfish, unconcerned with others… it tracked.

"There were plans to try to make an exchange trade her for… I dunno. Something." Paul held up a hand, "I heard about all the details later, second and thirdhand, but no one sent a message to him before he decided to just – just kill everyone," Paul was blinking back tears now, voice thick, cracking as he tried to control himself.

"How… how did he-?"

"Blew up Summerville Dam. On Christmas Eve. Thousands of people, from all over Western Appalachia – dead overnight. And his girlfriend."

Jessica felt a pit open in her stomach, horror and disgust –

People in my government and China's approved nukes that killed millions? And I can still feel sick at some asshole just killing thousands?

"Poole died, pretty much everyone in the Charleston Emergency Government died, a lot of Responders died… but those of us that are left – we couldn't just let everyone in every other town, every little community that had worked with us, with the CEG – they needed us."

Paul exhaled, wiping at his eyes and shook his head. "These days we're based out of Morgantown Airport, but we've got people all over Western Appalachia."

"Including Flatwoods?"

"Yeah," Paul nodded. He gestured for her to follow him as he turned, "We need to get to the outpost before it's dark,"

As they walked, Jessica had a million questions – about the Raiders, about Charleston, about the CEG… about people she knew, were they still alive (almost certainly not, under the circumstances, why bother asking?) burning in her mind, but –

She didn't know where to start. How many people were left in Appalachia now? The 'Territory of Appalachia' - and her grandparents had bitched about the change from 'West Virginia' to 'Appalachia', even though it had happened when they were kids – had about 2 million people in 2077. A complete breakdown in trade and travel across the country would have killed people from lack of food, medicine… starvation, winter, riots, suicides… she couldn't imagine how many thousands – how many hundreds of thousands – had died just in that first year alone. Panicked stampedes alone could have killed god knew how many.

And then people kept dying. Because god forbid a guy like Thorpe stop being a selfish psychopath.

And the Responders? Western Appalachia was what was under their authority? And the Free Staters were in charge around Harper's Ferry? And ex-military in Cranberry Bog? Why wouldn't they have stayed loyal to the government? Soldiers were the most fanatically patriotic, in her experience.

But then, if there was no government to respond to…

"There was never… there's really been no attempt by any part of the Federal Government to… try to do anything? Jessica asked. "They just… nothing?" She couldn't imagine the President and Vice President, Congress just hanging around and dying – they had to have fled to some fancy bunker, right? Were they still there? Maybe communications were cut off, like with Vault 76?

Still, you'd think there'd be some sort of military formation that retained… coherence? Tried to establish some sort of order? Other territory governments? Commonwealth governments? Someone had have tried to keep things together at least regionally? Had they all failed?

"Maybe they're all dead." Paul shook his head. "There's trade that trickles in from outside of Appalachia – I don't think I've heard any of them mention any sort of organized Federal government."

"The roads are safe enough for long distance trade?"

"Define safe. Everyone's traveling in caravans and armed to the teeth, but yeah, trade happens." They took a turn down the hill, and a tower/shack/think made from wood came into view ahead of her.

Jessica wasn't sure how sturdy it was, but it was still standing, so there was that. There was a doorway, or at least she figured it was, covered by a sheet of scrap metal, and stairs leading up to the top of the little tower, offering a bit of a vantage point.

"The Vault 76 Outpost." Paul explained. "There's been someone coming up here a couple days a month for about the last five years."

"Just… to watch the Vault?" That's all? Just to check? No scheming to get in?

"Someone had to come out sometime, though I honestly never expected it to happen on my watch." Paul shrugged, wiping a hand down his face, and then approaching the sheet of metal, lifting it and putting it aside, revealing a doorway. "It's not the best insulated, but it'll be better than being outside," Paul offered, and Jessica wasted no time getting inside, where Paul was already trying to light some sticks inside a firepit, succeeding after several attempts, tinder lighting, and then the sticks. Paul pulled the metal sheet back in front of the doorway.

Paul put a log into the pit, and then opened one of those familiar blue coolers, rooting around inside it. While he did that, Jessica looked around the little space:

Two sleeping bags – patched and worn, but clean. The fire pit. A radio. An unlit lamp, probably burning oil.

"Here," Paul handed her a glass Nuka-Cola bottle holding clear water. "I figure you probably brought something with you out of the Vault," Jessica nodded, accepting the bottle. "Probably purer than this – this is boiled and filtered, and mostly rad free."

"Mostly?" That was not a word someone wanted to hear about how free of radiation something was.

"We're all going to die of cancer eventually from the rads just floating around," Paul shrugged, "The Doctors figure the water won't speed that up much, but it will set a Geiger counter off just barely," Jessica proved his words by holding the bottle up to her Pipboy, getting very quiet crackling.

"...I suppose I did realize I was chopping ten years off my life when I left..." Jessica murmured.

"There's the spirit!" Paul laughed. He also handed her a round disc of some sort of hard bread, and a piece of jerky. "Save your water and food until you've got nothing else – I'm guessing it's stuff that'll keep?"

"Yeah." She looked at the jerky. "Do I want to ask?"

"Venison. Though more and more deer have two heads now, doesn't change the taste."

"...Seriously? Two heads?" Jessica shook her head.

"Right out of one of those bad movies, yup." Paul agreed. "The bread's hardtack – soldiers ate it way back in the Civil War, according to our research guys. It's tasteless, can break your teeth and gets beyond boring after a while, but it keeps, and during winter..."

"You need that." Jessica nodded.

You did guess you wouldn't be able to eat like you had in the Vault forever, but… God. Zero to Sixty, right?

Paul sat down next to the fire, holding his own jerky and hardtack, and another Nuka-Cola bottle of water next to him. He broke off a piece of his hardtack with some effort and popped the piece into his mouth, sucking on it. "Usually you want to crush it up into stew or soup or something, dip it in your water… something. Don't bite directly on it whole." He spoke with his mouth full, sucking on the bit of bread like it was a hard candy.

He lit the oil lamp, the two light sources casting flickering shadows over the interior space, but at least letting her see what she was going to eat.

The hardtack really didn't look appetizing. Didn't look unappetizing. Just… looked.

Jessica took nearly a minute to actually break a small piece off the hardtack – eventually whacking it against the glass bottle of water – and put it in her mouth, slowly, still insure.. She very carefully pressed her molars against it, and met resistance. She pressed more.

More resistance.

She decided to suck on it for a bit, like Paul had.

Jessica still had so many questions, and she still didn't know where to start.

"So… I appreciate the help, the food, the water-" She twisted off the cap and took a sip. The water had a heavily filtered and boiled taste – or rather, lack of taste – but it didn't quite taste like the water she knew from the Vault.

Really hope I'm not killing myself with this.

"But you're wondering about the catch?" Paul bit a chunk out of his jerky.

"Something like that." Between sucking on it and the water, the piece of hardtack in her mouth was now soggy enough to chew.

"No catch yet. The whole point of the Responders is to help people. But… we can't give away free food forever. We sell some, for people who just want to trade for it – there's some moonshiner up in these hills somewhere, comes down to Flatwoods once a month to trade booze for food." Paul's expression as he mentioned the booze told Jessica all she needed to know about it's taste.

Paint thinner? Still. It was good to know that the old West Virginia/Appalachia tradition of backwoods Moonshine was still going strong.

"But mostly it's food for work, or some kind of service. When I'm not here, I usually run messages and patrol the roads around Flatwoods and the nearby farms." Paul explained. "So, long term, if you want to keep getting food from us, you need to chip in, in some way, if you can."

"Well, I have no problem with that." Until she had a lead or an idea on where to start looking for the Silos… helping help people was perfect. And maybe Jessica could make herself useful enough to get… favors? Maybe even rise up the ranks? She wondered how that worked. "I don't really have anywhere specific to go, and… I mean, I just heard about you guys today, but you seem like good people. Where do I sign up?"

"You'll want to talk to Dassa when we get to Flatwoods. She's in charge of all the Responders there and nearby areas, and basically our chief logistics woman too." Paul laughed, "Everyone wears a lot of hats out here. Too much work, and not enough people."

Makes sense. Jessica wondered what she could bring to the table. She didn't know how useful her political activism and campaigning expertise could be. She was good – great – at organizing people, but that did require a certain level of trust and familiarity. She'd picked up enough filling in where she could at the Vault…

Maybe I can do the same for the Responders? She knew enough medicine to do a bit of triage and help around an infirmary. She knew enough about mechanics to help with small jobs in the Vaults, picked up over the years. She could cook, if she had to. She could clean and if nothing else…

Someone's got to dig the shit holes. Jessica had to imagine a lot of plumbing didn't work anymore.

Jessica really hoped she could do something more useful than that. Something that could give her a chance to -

Jessica snorted as she realized she was already planning her rapid ascent up the ranks of an organization she'd just heard of. She didn't even know who she needed to kiss up to and get favors from and she was already imagining doing it.

Can take the girl away from politics, can't take the politics away from the girl.

Jessica nodded, "That makes sense." She ate some of her jerky – it tasted like her distant memory of venison jerky, if very dry, pretty hard and… just a little off. "I have… so many questions, but..." She looked through a small window high in the walls of the little shack, a place for smoke to escape through, and saw that it was fully dark outside now. "I think I need to sleep on everything first."

"It's got to be a lot to process," Paul stated the obvious with enviable skill. He looked over at the radio, "Mind if I turn it on for a bit? This late, it'll just be recorded music unless there's an emergency." Jessica shook her head. Paul fiddled with it, and then the dial, and a familiar instrumental piece Jessica couldn't remember the name of started playing.

"So you have a working radio station?

"Oh yeah. Responder Radio, out of Morgantown, does news and a few interviews, plus the tunes. But we're not the only one. There's a couple others, mostly music, not all. Some stations with pretty short range – Responder Radio goes clear from Grafton to Lewisburg most of the time, but we've got solid equipment and some real juice to put behind it."

Jessica fiddled with her PipBoy, picking up five total major radio signals – and various smaller weaker ones. She looked at the radio, identifying which one was 'Responder Radio' and quickly naming that frequency in her PipBoy.

She debated asking about the others, but Paul was leaning against the wall, eyes closed, clearly awake, but listening to the music, occasionally taking a drink of water or a small bite of his food.

Jessica decided to save questions for tomorrow. Maybe it was time to stop thinking for a bit, and just… process.

I hope to god leaving the Vault wasn't the worst mistake of my life.

February 21st​, 2086
Vault 76 Responder Outpost

Jessica felt herself being shaken awake, an unfamiliar voice close by. Jessica's eyes snapped open –

Paul was crouched by her sleeping back, hand on her shoulder. Sunlight was creeping in through into the room, still dim and rising, the fire long since burned out from the low embers it had been when she'd gone to sleep.

Thankfully, she remembered where she was, why she was here – no confused 'wait, why is this not my room in the Vault' running through her head.


Paul took his hand off her shoulder and pressed a finger to his lips.

"Listen," He whispered, voice barely audible. Jessica slowly sat up, straining her ears, hearing nothing for a moment, and then –

Scuttling, like a crap crawling over something. But there was a metallic edge to it. And then an electronic sound – no, a voice, distorted, but definitely a computer generated voice. Speaking in…

Chinese?

"Is that-?" Jessica started, and Paul nodded.

"Questions later, help me with them now." He jerked his head towards Jessica's 10mm pistol as he grabbed his rifle. "I move that," he pointed at the sheet of metal that was the 'door' of the shack, "and they start shooting lasers at us. Stay low, use the walls as cover."

What the hell are – what is he talking about? That wasn't people out there – some kind of robots? Chinese robots?

Jessica pulled herself out of the sleeping bag, grabbed the gun, flicking off the safety, running through her drills on the shooting range in the Vault. She was better than average – Annie Oakley, however, she was not. And she'd never shot at something…

She swallowed, tensed, holding the pistol in both hands. Still crouching, Paul moved over to the sheet of metal and reached his hand out, giving it a firm push before ducking back around the doorway.

The sheet tilted forward and then hit the door with a soft thump, revealing the wooded hills of Appalachia lit by the light of the rising sun, and the two robots – green, shaped like inverted oversized bullets, thin-fragile looking legs holding them up as they skittered towards the shack, a single red star visible on each of them.

Jessica stared for a moment – and then they each shot, a red laser coming from each, one impacting the exterior of the shack, the other flying over her head, hitting the wall, immediately scorching it.

"Fuck!" She squeezed the trigger, firing blindly, wildly, all lessons about aiming flying from her mind – her bullets failed to connect at all, and after several shots, another missed laser, Jessica dove down lower, laying prone, rolling to the side, exposing as little of herself through the open doorway as possible.

She closed her eyes sucking in air, trying to steady herself, heart pounding, blood rushing –

She heard Paul take several shots of his own, slower, more measured – she opened her eyes, seeing him using the edge of the doorway as cover, poking his head out, taking aim, firing –

Two shots had hit one of the robots, bits of metal blasted off of it, but it was clearly less fragile than she'd thought on first look.

I can't just – this is not going to be my first showing in a fight! Pride, if nothing else – Jessica was not going to let herself go down as someone who lost at the first sign of violence. Of something getting hard!

She pushed herself back up into a crouch, trying to get into a better angle from inside the shack – and then she took aim and fired –

This time she was rewarded by the sound of her bullet hitting metal, punching into the robot, leaving a hole in its body. It fired at her again, and somehow Jessica either managed to dodge it or its aim continued to be bad – she wasn't sure which – and then she fired again, then again – the second shot missed, the third hit, this one getting one of its legs –

The leg broke clean off and the little robot – it wouldn't even have come up to her knee – skittered around for a moment, trying to stay up, but instead it tilted over, hitting the ground, legs whirring, trying to move, shooting – but it's new angle meant the laser just hit the dirt.

Jessica fired again, and this one went right through the center of the body, and then Paul's next shot did something similar, leaving both robots knocked out of commission, sparking, legs twitching for a few moments.

Gasping, Jessica lowered her pistol. Her vault suit felt too tight, and she zipped the top down a bit, exposing her collarbone.

"Okay," She said, still breathily heavily, "What the fuck were those?"

"Some kind of Chinese robot." Paul's gift for the obvious struck again. He shook his head, "That's about all anyone knows. They showed up… 2079? People freaked when they first showed up, terrified some kind of Chinese Invasion force was just over the horizon or something. According to some vets, the Reds used a crappier version of these things in Alaska as scouts… but these are tougher."

"Is their aim always –" Because really, how had they not landed a single shot? Jessica knew that her Vault Suit was at least partially resistant to lasers and had some light weaving of antiballistic fibers into its makeup, it was one of the many reasons they were the standardized outfit Vault-Tec had decided on it as the baseline for the vaults, from what she'd gathered from the VTU graduates in 76.

"Not always. We got lucky." Paul confirmed. "Maybe these ones were a bad batch or… something. Some seem to be tougher than others in general."

"Where – where do they – so there's no Chinese Invasion force anywhere, right?" Was Villanueva right? If that piece of shit was even a little-

"If there is, no one's told me about it," Paul assured her. "Best guess, either there's some secret Chinese spy base somewhere – the ones you always heard rumors about – churning these out, or someone is making them for another reason and pretending they're Chinese."

"Or," Paul added, "The Free Staters are right and it's all some false flag thing the government set up that went wrong after the bombs dropped." He whistled and circled his finger around his ear. "They were right about prepping for the end of the world, sure, but they're still paranoid as hell."

Jessica grunted. She'd sympathized with the basic motivations of the Free States movement – at least until it got violent and started proposing secession. They were right about the path the US was going down, their resistance to the corporations and the increasingly heavy-handed Federal, Commonwealth and Territorial governments.

But quitting, even if it would have worked, was never the right solution. You don't fix a country by leaving it, you do the hard work of actually organizing! And you don't kill people just for disagreeing with you.

The other thing that had left her looking askance at them was the weird fusion extreme libertarian elements with… not communist, but other forms of left-wing thought. Anarchism was a fundamentally left-wing viewpoint, apart from some fringe extremists. The strange bedfellows of it all had been hard for her to figure out if they were worse than the disease even before they started actually shooting and killing people.

And of course, their paranoia had meant they were never going to be taken seriously.

Stopped clocks can be right about impending nuclear war though… and maybe even Vault-Tec…

"They're mostly just a nuisance – their lasers can hurt, but it's if they get close and start cutting at you with those legs of theirs that they can kill you. If they gathered in large enough numbers, they could be a real problem, but they don't." Paul slung his gun over his back, gathering a few items, including picking up the cooler, and then stepped out of the shack. Jessica grabbed her backpack, holstering her pistol and putting the pack on once she was outside.

Paul crouched by the two dead robots, and picked one up, "Can you carry this while we head down to the road?" Jessica took it wordlessly, eyebrow raised – the metal was still warm, but at least not burning. "There's perfectly good metal and electronics in these things." Paul picked up the other and stood.

"First lesson for surviving in Death Virginia," Paul said, grinning, "Just about everything is useful to someone somewhere eventually. Waste not, want not. Salvage what you can, scrap what you can't, and don't throw anything away if you can manage it."

Jessica looked at his rifle, made of pipes and scrap, and then nodded slowly. "I'll keep that in mind."