The bulk of the work had been completed on the Appalachia simulation. Dr. Braun finally gave permission to include factions and I was fine-tuning some of the storylines around a few of the groups. My personal favorite was a cult that worshiped the infamous Mothman of Point Pleasant- I figured it would be a good way to allow the residents to release tension with a little role playing. There were also a few other groups that would serve as adversaries and allies during their sessions.

While I still continued to restrict my news intake, I could tell that it was getting bad in the outside world and spent the bulk of my time in the Vault beneath VTU. There wasn’t anything out there that I couldn’t find within the warm embrace of the Visiontron and I would spend hours on end roaming around the Wasteland, as we had started calling it.

I was about to start my morning shift when Chan walked in, looking more annoyed than usual.

‘They’re halting work on Visiontron Leisure and reallocating us to the military division.’ He slammed a clipboard down on the desk in front of me. I grabbed it and flipped through some of the pages. My thoughts were consumed with the images we had seen months ago and I sat in one of the chairs by the terminal bank.

‘It was the Brotherhood of Steel, wasn’t it?’ Chan shrugged, then an almost imperceptible nod as he looked away.

One of the many factions we had tested was called the Brotherhood of Steel, a pseudo military organization that we thought could be a fun way to deal with the leftover military presence that would likely still be around, even with total nuclear annihilation. It was a castaway idea; we had done a bit of work with hierarchy and background, but ultimately decided that it was too intense for a leisure program.

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The idea of the Brotherhood could easily be twisted and turned into a post-nationalist fascist organization. Once the soldiers began training with the fictitious protocols during stasis, they would simply carry this idea forward into the real world.

‘They’ve started running tests now and will likely use it for the soldiers placed into cryo stasis. By the time they emerge, they’ll believe that it exists in reality. It could change the balance of power for the survivors.’

I grabbed the clipboard and threw it across the room, pissed with myself for allowing that throwaway idea to taint the work we had been doing. There were still a few things I wanted to finish in the Appalachia simulation, so I stood and made my way over to one of the pods in the bank, setting up the simulation for possibly the last time.

When I opened my eyes to the bright green foliage and blue skies of Appalachia, I immediately relaxed. The smells of the lush grass of the Forest greeted me and I brushed past a bush that covered a trailer. Its white stripe and baby blue paint triggered memories from my childhood.

I could see my mother and father standing outside, thrilled to have a home of their own and the despair that permanently invaded his soul when my mother told him about her cancer diagnosis. I saw myself running through the grass of the neatly kept lawn as she rested- exhausted from endless rounds of chemotherapy. I remembered the day she died and the desire to be anywhere but there.

My eyes watered and I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around to face Chan. He embraced me and we fell to the ground, attempting to forget all of the misery, present and past.