"Uhh... Everything okay?" Preston asked.

I realized that a tear was trickling down my cheek, probably leaving a track in the many months' worth of dirt caking my face.

"Oh yeah, yeah, everything's fine... Just this place-" A noise made me raise my rifle, and Preston quickly followed my lead.

The others had already forged ahead into the houses to find someplace comfortable to settle for the night, the occasional gunshot or clatter ringing out. However, there was something else, a whirring noise, gradually getting louder. Suddenly, a scream rang through the air, and a buzzsaw burred. Not a second later, Marcy was sprinting back out of a house, a very neglected-looking Mister Handy chasing her.

Both of us took aim and I motioned for Preston to let me deal with it.

"Come here you no good hooligan, good for nothing bastard!" The robot shouted with a British accent, and I felt my fingers waver over the trigger.

"No..." I muttered, "How could it-" Marcy tripped and the robot was mere seconds away from cutting into her. Beside me, I felt Preston tense up, "CODSWORTH!"

A name that had been sitting at the very back of my mind, one that I had almost forgotten about, yet now it had surfaced once again. A piece of my past. The Mister Handy unit stopped the exact second it heard its name, turning its two good eyes towards us. Its third one hung from a few loose wires, barely held in place.

As it floated slowly over towards us, I saw its eyes focusing on my face, Preston’s hand twitching towards his trigger, but I lifted a hand to stop him.

"I have not heard anyone use my name since... Since everything changed." His voice sounded concerned, "How do you know it, good sir?"

"Of course!" I rubbed my forehead, "You wouldn't recognize me, not with the way I've changed since the bombs dropped."

"I don't understand-"

"It's me, Codsworth! It's me... Uhh, J-James. James Teach!" My old name felt weird to use as if it was no longer mine to use. James Teach had been a very different man compared to me.

My Mister Handy stared at me silently for a good while, Preston looking at the interaction in confusion.

"Sir?" He finally muttered, "It's really you?"

"I'm not joking... I'm finally home, buddy." My emotions finally got the better of me, and I hugged the rusted machine, "But tell me, how did you survive?"

"The electromagnetic pulse following the nuclear detonation disabled my system for a while, until I was repaired by Mister Baker. He looked different though, much, much different. He’s dead now, he went insane and attacked me, much like Mister and Missus Sumner… Oh, sir! They're all dead, and I killed them! I haven't seen Mum or Shaun-" Those names felt like a kick in the jaw, and took two steps backwards, "-either. Are they with you, sir, perchance?"

"No." I croaked, "No, they're not with me."

"Oh, that's terrible news! Where on earth could they be then?"

"They're dead, Codsworth. After two hundred years, they must be... Hopefully, they got to live their lives to the fullest in the vault."

"The vault, sir? Now that you say, I do recall armed personnel passing through here, wearing clothes decorated with the Vault-Tec logo, and coming from the direction of the emergency shelter."

"When?"

Codsworth stared at me for a moment, "The information is somewhat corrupted, unfortunately. To answer your question, the closest I can say is sometime in two-thousand and seventy-eight."

"This- Holy shit, this is amazing!" Preston exclaimed from beside me, his eyes and mouth wide open.

"What is?" I frowned in annoyance.

"You! You're no ghoul, yet you talk about the far past? How? You lived before the Great War?"

"Short answer, yes." I turned back towards Codsworth, "So you're saying the vault might be empty?"

"It's a possibility, Mister Teach, sir... On another note, I'd like to apologise to your companion for attacking her."

"I'm sure she'll get over it." I smiled, "So, what have you been doing while I've been away?"

"Oh, I've tried so many things to try and get rid of the stains, but I was never created for situations such as this. And let's not even talk about the broken roof and windows, or the hedge, or your car, or the-"

"Alright, alright! Calm down, my friend. The war was hard on everything and everyone, your dangling eye living proof of that. I'm just happy to be back here, and I’m even happier to see you."

The sight of my house in the distance, though it had seen far better days, was overwhelming. I followed Codsworth silently, more tears streaming down my face. In the back of my head, I registered the others staring at me, but I couldn't care less.

Our orange door, however battered it was, still had flecks of paint that reminded me of what colour it had once been. As I pushed it open, there was no creak of the hinges, nor did it break off. Codsworth's handiwork.

Walking inside, I could see my past play before my eyes. Me sitting on the couch, watching the TV. Natalie cooking up something delicious in the kitchen.

Now the couch was faded, stained and far beyond its prime. I could say the same about the kitchen, the dining table covered in muck burned onto it by radiation. Everything was relatively clean though, and it was by far one of the best-looking buildings I had come across in the wastes.

My path led me down our corridor, some of the floor tiles missing, and I stepped into the bedroom. There was our bedframe, though the mattress was missing.

So many good memories connected to it...

"I was able to repair most of the damage suffered by the house using your tools and materials I found. Unfortunately, the mattress was beyond saving, and I'm afraid I had to throw it away."

"Don't worry about it, Codsworth. What you did... All of this? It's brilliant. Fucking brilliant, there are no other words for it."

"Why thank you, Sir."

Finally, I steeled my nerves and looked inside Shaun's room. His blue cot still sat in the middle of the room, his toys strewn across the floor as if he had just been here yesterday.

My heart ached just from looking at it, and it took all my willpower to return to the living room, placing my backpack and the deathclaw head beside the sofa before taking a seat.

Staring at the black TV screen, I pictured what a different life it would've been had the bombs never dropped. A speech and a medal, then a nice life with a restaurant and a loving wife and son. Maybe I could've had a daughter as well, a little sister to compliment the big brother.

Codsworth floated over and handed me a beer, which, to my surprise, was cold.

"How-"

A knock on the door interrupted me and I turned around to see Preston standing in the doorway, hat in his hands. I shoved the mystery to the back of my head and popped the beer open on the armrest.

"So, this is… or was your home?" He asked, looking about the place.

"It was.” I nodded, sighing, “Once... Long ago. Maybe it can be that way again." I smirked sadly, "Come, have a seat, and a beer if there's more."

I looked at Codsworth, who was already floating towards the fridge. As he opened it, I saw the light come alive inside.

How was that possible? I had a working fridge back in Alabama, but that had been thanks to hundreds of caps and a lot of hard work. But this place hadn't seen any intelligent life, save for Codsworth, for the past two hundred years.

"My dear friend," I aimed it at Codsworth, "How the fuck do you have working electricity in this house?"

"Ah, right you are, sir, that requires an explanation. RobCo installed into all Mister Handy units extra sets of programming in case of catastrophes. Seeing how enough parameters were fulfilled, the information package activated."

"And how did that get us to working appliances?"

"The cars in the neighbourhood were beyond repair, however, their fusion reactors were still functional. I patched into one shortly after Mister Baker saved me and managed to connect it to the house's electricity grid, though only the kitchen and part of the dining area are covered."

"You learn something new every day.” I chuckled, genuinely surprised. I took a sip of the beer, turning back towards Preston.

"Now that's a real rarity... Cold beer." He smiled, "Thank you. And while I'm here, with this being your home and everything, I feel like it's only appropriate to ask if we can settle here."

"Feel free to take any of the other houses, though take care of the odd overgrown insect that might've crawled into them. I'll probably lie down in a moment, it's been a long, eventful and incredibly strange day, and I've not felt this exhausted in a long time."

"Draining yourself emotionally will do that to a person... Though I doubt I have to explain that to you." He took a sip of the beer, and his grin spread even wider.

"I've had my fair share of experiences during my life." I grimaced, "But that does not place me above others... If you need help with anything, I'll be here for you guys, all you have to do is ask."

"Thank you, for everything... James?"

I let out a soft chuckle, "I haven't used that name ever since I left the Enclave, and I don’t want to pick it back up again. "

Preston let out a quiet whistle of admiration and dipped his head, "The Enclave. Only ever heard ghost stories about them as a kid. To meet someone who was actually a part of it..."

"I was a big part of it…” I laughed sadly, “A story for another time, perhaps. It was good to be a member of something big after the bombs dropped. It pulled me out of a deep depression, giving me a purpose again.” I sighed, “But that was before President George Adams declared the Enclave to be a bastion of purity." I spat the words, not even trying to hide my distaste for the president that had ruined what had once been a noble attempt at fixing the world.

"Maybe you'll get that chance again? It's never too late to try." He stood up, "We could use someone like you, maybe you could use us too. Thanks for the beer... And sleep well." He walked back outside, while I stared blankly into thin air.

----------------------------------------

My eyes fluttered open, and I jumped up, staring around in shock at my surroundings.

The memories of yesterday’s events returned to me with the rays of sunlight streaming through the holes in the wall, shining straight into my eyes.

A buzzsaw whirred to life behind me, and I whipped my head around to see Codsworth floating in the kitchen, chopping up a carrot. Beside him boiled a pot of water.

I had suffered from no dreams this night, a rarity nowadays. They were bound to return in due time once I settled in.

The sounds of others living their life filtered through the walls from outside. Someone, most probably Sturges, was hammering on a bit of metal, and I could also hear muted talking. The boom of a laser musket was quickly followed by the crack of a pipe weapon, then silence. Staring out of the window, I noticed nobody else react to the sound and calmed down. Preston was probably clearing the houses of critters.

Next to where I had sat, Dogmeat moved around a bit, and I couldn't help but smile. On the floor was our blue dog bowl, still there after all these years. Natalie had bought a small Jack Russell terrier shortly after I had come home from the front. I never had the time to really connect with the little rascal, what with me going to Alaska a month later. The dog had run off by the time I had returned from my final assignment.

Then the bombs dropped.

"Good morning!" I yelled, shaking the thoughts from my head and instead waving towards Marcy, Mama Murphy and Sturges.

"Sure is!" Sturges replied with a smile.

Preston came striding down the street, rifle in hand and a blueish-green slime splattered on his coat.

"Hey, nice to see you awake."

"Where've you been?" I pointed at the stains.

"Oh, this?" He wiped at it uselessly, "Jun and I have been clearing some of the houses. A radroach here, a bloatfly there. Nothing out of the ordinary."

"I can see you've occupied the Rosa family's house," I smirked, bobbing my head to the house opposite mine.

The minuteman nodded, looking over to the three settlers working on patching up the house.

"You guys should start working on lunch! We've found quite a few cans of food lying about the place." He called over.

"Lunch?" I muttered, looking up at the sun, only to find the sky obscured with a light cover of clouds, "What time is it?"

He looked at an old timepiece, "It'll be noon in an hour, so-"

My laughter cut him off, "You're shitting me, I slept for half a day?!"

"We didn't want to wake you, decided you did your fair share of work yesterday."

I patted his shoulder, "I can't remember the last time I slept that long." With a smile on my face, I stared towards the hill, even from here the Vault-tec billboard was visible, though the poster advertising the vault was bleached almost completely white by radiation and two centuries of sunlight.

That reminded me of what I wanted to do today.

"I, for one, feel much safer here than I have felt in most other places during my life. I can understand why you slept that much."

After a light-hearted chuckle, I switched topics, "Before I forget, I'm going to leave you guys here for half a day."

"Uhhh..."

"No, don't worry, I'll be back. Codsworth over there-" Pointing to the robot butler, I continued, "He knows a thing or two. Maybe you can get some power back into the place or patch up one roof to stop the next storm from completely drenching us. Once you're ready, I suggest you return to Concord to collect at least some of that deathclaw, and the weapons. Don't eat it though, we can use it to barter with Trudy's diner."

"Understandable. And if you don't mind me asking, where will you be?"

"Me? Oh, I'll be exploring that vault looking over us."

"You mean, that massive sign up on that hill is for right here?"

"Vault One-Eleven, yeah. They're built to last, normally with some sick experiment happening behind those closed doors. Hopefully, we can gather all the supplies we need from inside. At the very least, they'll have a reactor we can use."

"You staying for lunch?"

"Probably not. I'll unpack my remaining supplies, which you can use to your liking, and I’ll start mulling over ways to further improve this place while up there.”

"Sounds like a plan. I've got some ideas of my own, if you don't mind me voicing them out loud, that is."

"Go on right ahead, you guys are living here just as much as I am. But let's leave that for later."

He bowed his head, then started walking slowly towards the bridge, musket at the ready.

"Sir!" Codsworth called from the house, "Good day, sir! As soon as you’re ready, I can serve lunch.”

I turned around to look at Codsworth, "I'm not hungry right now, why don't you offer it up to the others? It'll nicely complement whatever they're cooking."

Unpacking my backpack, I looked at the handful of items I still had with me. The food and water I had bought from Trudy, handfuls of fusion cells and my carefully sealed and wrapped bottle of deathclaw pheromones. Bullets of varying calibres... Man, what didn't this bag still contain?

I gently rubbed the one remaining grenade I had, its smooth surface reminding me of the times when such things weren't handcrafted, but made by the precision of a machine, in factories.

Slipping my revolver from its holster, I quickly reloaded all my shots and pocketed about three entire magazines worth more. Doing the same for my pistol, I counted the two remaining clips I had and cursed. My bullets weren't exactly ideal in number, but I'd make do with what I could. More would be arriving with Judy.

Patting Dogmeat on the head as I left the house, I looked at the settlers gathering around Codsworth, who was ladling soup into bowls that they'd found. I was torn between walking over to them and heading straight to the vault.

Finally, I made up my mind and strode towards the hill, passing by Preston once more.

"Preston, one last thing!" He turned my way, as I stopped in my tracks, "If an old ghoul arrives with a small army of caravan guards and a train of brahmin, then don't panic. She's a good friend whom I've asked to bring my stuff over. If they arrive while I'm in the vault, try and call for me please."

"Will do, I'll tell Jun to keep his pipe pistol pocketed."

With a farewell nod, I walked over the stream and approached the rusted gate under the massive, desiccated billboard. Skeletons were scattered all over the ground, wearing scraps of cloth that had once been colourful clothes but had now long been bleached by nuclear radiation and the sun. Grass sprouted in between their remains, curling around bones and through the sockets of their eyes.

The poor bastards that hadn't been let inside, some had once been familiar faces. People from Sanctuary, living so close to salvation, yet barred from entering it.

What made one person worthy of entering safety, while another was left to die outside? Vault-Tec never had anything constituting actual morals, it just took nuclear annihilation to figure it out.

Inside the fenced-off area, one bulldozer lay toppled on its side, and a second was crushing the top half of a suit of power armour. It would be too much trouble to dig it out from underneath it, not like it was in any condition that was worthwhile for me to waste my time on.

Containers were piled on top of each other in a corner, rusted like everything else but holding up surprisingly well. No logo decorated its side, probably washed off by centuries of rain. Striding up to it with a bar of iron I had picked up off the floor, I was surprised to see a locking mechanism like no other.

Military-grade tech. Either this belonged to the US Military or the Enclave, definitely not Vault-Tec. This place felt abandoned enough to know that whomever its owner was, they weren't coming back for it, meaning it was free for the taking. Opening it would be hard, but with such a lock keeping outsiders out of it? Whatever was inside was going to be worth it.

My eyes settled on the big round vault door in the middle of the ground, "Now... Where can I open this?" A little hut stood overlooking it, and as I peeked inside, there it was... A red button. Another skeleton decorated the ground, wearing the incredibly faded fatigues of a serviceman. Caught in the blast, like so many others... But then where was the key to open the door?

Searching through a decaying cardboard box, I found only documents that had been soaked through numerous times by acidic rain and had blurred together into one big jumble of ink. Not like anyone needed them anymore. As I threw it outside, my foot scraped against the floor, and I heard a metallic tinkle. There glinted the key, hidden by two hundred years' worth of rubble and trash.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Placing it into the correct slot, I slammed down on the button whilst twisting the key. Yellow lights lit up around the door, and an alarm blared loud enough that it was probably audible even from Sanctuary. Hopefully, there was nothing too dangerous living about these parts that'd take an interest in such a noise. We could all do without another deathclaw.

Running over to the platform, I managed to stand on it before it started descending. Slowly but surely, the metal elevator finally came to a stop in front of a closed cage door.

"Fucking hell... Two hundred years, and I've finally entered the vault." I smirked at the irony of my situation, "Better late than never."

As the cage door creakily lifted, I stared at the massive cogwheel in the wall, still closed after all this time. If everyone had left the vault, why would they close the door behind themselves?

Maybe people still lived inside?

Finding the terminal for the door, I plugged in my pipboy and let the hacking program go to work, the Enclave technology uploaded onto it on par, if not stronger than what Vault-Tec had. In two minutes, I had the option selected for the door's mechanism to slide the blast door out of my way.

As something clunked on the far side, I unholstered my pistol. I had seen and heard my fair share of tales about the horrific experiments in vaults, and by God did I not want to meet anything of the sort. With the massive cog pulling back amidst a cloud of vapour, and then rolling to the left, a walkway extended and connected with my side.

There was no vibrant colony of third- and fourth-generation vault dwellers living here, nor could I see anything that looked like an experiment gone wrong. Everything looked dead, and it seemed like it had been so for years, decades even. Movement caught my eye, and just like that, a shot rang out. The medium-sized radroach, which had scurried out of its hiding spot, was now dead, its chitin plating and innards spraying everywhere.

At its death, two more roaches rose from their slumber and started scurrying toward me. Neither got very far as each was finished off with a shot.

Taking a few steps forward, I laid my eyes on a skeleton still dressed in a lab coat adorned with the Vault-Tec logo. A bullet-sized hole decorated its skull.

"What the hell happened here?"

I stopped before two doors, trying the left one first, but no amount of pulling on the handle caused it to open. It wasn't jammed, but rather locked.

Hacking it wouldn't be an issue... What would be, however, was activating some sort of dormant security system because of my meddling. Last thing I needed was to become the centre of attention to a host of protectrons and automated turrets.

Without any better options, I tried my luck on the other one, following the faded white line and arrows painted on the ground. Though it let out a tortured screech as it opened, causing me to wince and raise my pistol, it wasn't a dead end, and that was a good enough reason for me to continue. A chilly breeze swept over me, making me shudder. Nothing should be that cold down here.

Wary of any more roaches, I walked slowly down the corridor, a window to my right. Placing my hands on the glass, I felt just how cold it was, the surface of it smudged and... Was that ice covering the other side?

Opening the door leading into the room, it got significantly colder as I swept the interior. Nothing.

Six pod-like machines stood in the centre, all manner of tubes connected to them. They were eerily similar to sarcophagi. Curious as to what was inside, I strode up to the nearest one and scraped away the ice just enough to peer inside. Whatever it was, it was blue, that much I could see from the blur.

"What the fuck?!" I gasped, as I finally recognized the contents of the pod.

Looking back at me, mouth agape and eyes rolled up in his head, was Antonio Dipietro... Two hundred years later and I could still recognize the man.

Pulling the lever beside the pod, it beeped in response, and the door started to open, only to stop a second later.

"Come on... Open, you shit!" I tried again, only to get the same response, "Is every one of these pods filled?"

I went around the room and scraped off the ice from each one. There were three people whom I couldn't recognize... Then there were the Whitefields.

Each of their doors was the same as John's.

My heart sank as I realized that they were probably dead. What the hell was this experiment... and where were Natalie and Shaun?

Striding up to the terminal in the wall, I didn't even have to pass any encryption as the terminal booted up.

Welcome to ROBCO Industries ™ Termlink

Thank you for choosing Vault-Tec!

The names of the occupants of the six pods, going from B1 to B6, flashed up on the screen. I selected the one titled Antonio Dipietro.

Cryogenic Array: Offline. Premature termination resulting in system failure. Isolated manual and remote overrides detected. Controls disabled.

Life Support: Offline. Premature termination resulting in system failure. Isolated manual and remote overrides detected. Controls disabled.

Occupant status: Deceased

Cause of Death: Asphyxiation due to Life Support failure

"Come on you piece of shit, where's Natalie?" I scrolled through the other entries, all of them with the same message. Deceased.

Angrily, I slammed my fist into the keyboard, and the entire terminal broke off from its stand and crashed to the ground. Stomping back outside, I looked around for where else they could be. A white fog was billowing out from underneath the door on my right.

As I kicked the malfunctioning door open, more pods appeared before me, as well as another terminal, which I approached at once.

Names came up... Yet more people I knew.

Able. Russell. Teach.

Then at the very bottom, it was there.

Natalie Teach/Shaun Teach

She was there... They were there.

So, they were dead then.

Did I really want to see them through the glass, their last breath plastered over their faces?

Tears streamed down my cheeks, but I finally strode towards pod C6 and lifted my hand to scrape at the ice.

Only, there wasn't any. Nor were there any occupants.

Sprinting back to the terminal, I opened her entry.

Cryogenic Array: Offline.

Life Support: Offline.

Occupant Status: Error

Pod door manual override engaged/Remote override engaged.

"The fuck is this? Where are they?" I muttered, quickly scrolling through the other occupants. Clicking on Gerald Callahan's name, the next lines I read felt like a punch in the gut.

Cryogenic Array: Online

Life Support: Online

Occupant Status: Normal

I could feel my heart start to beat faster.

He was alive?

Once again running down the steps, I pulled the lever beside pod C2 and it hissed to life, the front opening.

The face of a man, one that I didn't recognize, was before me. It was without any scar... A rarity in the wasteland.

Ever so slowly, his breathing sped up, and his eyes flickered open.

"Whu- Where- Who-" He tried lifting his hands, but they didn't seem to respond to him, no matter how he struggled.

"Don't worry, everything will be fine." I tried placating him, "You won't get hurt."

"Wh-Where's the rest of ya?"

I narrowed my eyes, "What are you talking about?"

"W-W-Whatever this thing is, it ain't no goddamn decontamination pod, as the staff called it..." He shook his head as he trailed off, his arms finally moving a bit, "W-Where're the others? My wife... Bonnie?"

"I'll be right back, let me check on them."

I strode back to the terminal and looked at the entries of the other occupants. Each and every single one was like a slap to the face as name after name popped up with positive vitals. That is, except for John Able. According to the machine, he had died due to equipment malfunction.

Why had an entire wing of pods shut down, but this one hadn't?

"So? What the hell's going on?"

I glanced at the man, not believing my eyes, "They're alive."

He stared at me in confusion, but I couldn't care less to explain in depth. Ignoring him, I stepped over to the pods, pulling lever after lever and watching them hiss open one by one. Slowly three more survivors awoke, all of them looking around in shock as they tried their best to make sense of their surroundings.

Waiting patiently for them to come to their senses, I recognized both Carrie Able and Jeremy Russell from Sanctuary Hills, the Callahans, however, were complete strangers to me.

"The others?" Jeremy asked after five minutes had passed, "And who are you?"

"You're all that's left, I'm afraid."

"No, I mean the others you came in with."

"Me?" I stared at him quizzically, "What the fuck are you talking about, I came alone."

"Well, I saw someone through that little window, dressed in rags like you, similarly dirty. He was with a bunch of hazmat-wearing folks. They walked away with one of our neighbours and her child, then... Then." He frowned while I felt the blood drain from my face and my arms start to ache.

"Natalie Teach?"

"She's the one. Poor woman had a husband that was barely home cause of the war. He didn't make it into the vault... Talk about being unlucky, huh?"

I stayed silent, watching Carrie tear up and start crying as she stared at her husband's pod and coffin. The others, however, were looking at me expectantly, save for the occasional pity glance towards the newly widowed woman.

"Look, you've got a bit of catching up to do folks. I don't know how to break it to you gently, but you've been asleep for a long time."

"How much?" Gerald scratched his forehead, "Three months? Six? An entire year?"

Jeremy started smiling, probably finding the situation absurd.

"How about you try two hundred."

All three of them stared at me, eyes widening.

"Motherfucker..." Jeremy muttered, "This some elaborate prank."

"Far from it. Now that I think about it, it's probably been two hundred and ten. And let me just say that your features have held up exceptionally well Jeremy."

That last comment completely sailed over his head as he processed the weight of the information, I had just dumped on him.

Finally, his eyes snapped back to me.

"You say that like I should know you... If two hundred years really have passed, how the fuck would you know me?"

"There are many things you've still got to learn about the new world. It's a dangerous place, with a million ways you can die. Horrific ways, that you'd never have thought possible. Me? To answer your question, I'm a ghost from the past, a relic so to speak. Call me the Ghost."

"What sort of name is that, come on man, spit out your real name."

"Really? I could say my real name, but you wouldn't believe it." I saw that my explanation hadn't moved the man, and with a sigh, I stared at the people in the room, "My old name was James Teach."

For half a minute, there was silence, broken by Jeremy.

"Bull-fucking-shit! I saw that man many times, I know what he looks like and you sure as shit ain't him!"

He took an angry step forward, but me placing my hand on the grip of my pistol was not a gesture lost on him, and he quickly backed off.

"That's better. I told you, didn’t I? You don't believe me... Now, I sure as hell didn't expect to find people I knew from the old world in this vault, all I fucking wanted was some closure about the fate of my family, and according to what you said I got the furthest thing from that! Don't go fucking trying my patience or you won't live to see the new, shitty world you woke up in, understood?"

"Alright, alright! Hold your horses, man... Say I believe you really are James, what the hell is all this that's going on?"

"I know about as much as you do. The other wing is dead, I'm not sure why you didn't suffer the same fate, but some mysteries are best left unsolved. I have little time for fucking around, you either stay here while I look around the rest of the vault, or tag along with me if you don't get in the way."

"Why not just leave?"

"I'm already down here, I'm not coming back without a good reason. You don't realise just how good some finds can be in abandoned and untouched vaults."

"You know what... You look like you've got the experience to back you up, whether you are who you say you are, or not." Jeremy muttered, "How about you guys?" He looked at the others. Gerald stepped forward, his wife following a second later. Carrie ripped herself away from the pod and tried her best to concentrate on me, tears streaming down her face.

Without saying another word, I strode towards the last door I hadn't tried yet, four sets of footsteps following me. As it opened, a large window revealed itself to me, a decent-sized roach sitting on it.

As I raised my weapon to shoot it, I realized it was on the far side.

"What the fuck is that?!" Bonnie screeched, making me flinch. I pointed my pistol toward her angrily.

"I'm going to say this only once. Screech like that again and I'm going to shoot you before you bring anything down on us... Got it?" Gerald stepped in front of her, but he quickly wilted under my gaze, "Now then, to answer your question... That's a radroach. Believe me, it's far from the worst thing you can encounter outside." I searched in my pockets, taking out four pairs of earplugs and handing them around, "Best you wear these if it comes to shooting."

"You wearing these too?"

"I've got... Other ways of protecting my hearing. Let's leave it at that. As for wastelanders, some of them also wear these, others have been exposed to enough radiation that they've mutated, gunshots don't hurt their hearing as much. Some just generally have shit hearing, and don’t care."

They gratefully put them in their ears, before heading into the room.

Scattered on a table before us were some security batons, Carrie was the first to grab one, Jeremy and Gerald following her lead. Maybe they weren't completely useless after all.

Carefully stepping into the small room to the side, I was met with no hostile wasteland creatures, a security terminal, and little else. Switching it on, I couldn't help but smirk at my luck as I opened up the first of the files on the Head of Security's terminal.

"What are we-"

I held up a hand to silence the man, "Just let me work on this a bit..." I cleared my throat, "Show me your secrets," I mumbled, sifting through messages about operations protocols, staff duties and other procedures. Finally, I found the logs.

It started like any documents did when describing the war, how they couldn't believe it actually happened. Yeah... Nobody could believe that the old world had ended that day. The twist in this story from two hundred years ago was soon to come, as they ran out of food while waiting for the all-clear signal. A hundred and eighty days? What were they fucking thinking?

Finally, the last entry talked about them leaving the vault by force. Could they have been the people Codsworth had seen leave? Were they the ones that had taken my family away? Why would they have only taken them though?

Too many questions, too few answers.

Only one thing was clear. Like always, Vault-Tec was the bogeyman of the story. This had never been meant to function like a normal vault. The security had been made to believe there was going to be an all-clear. Stupid bastards never realised they were meant to get things running, then starve to death. Cannon fodder, nothing more.

That's what must've caused the radroaches to grow so large. They opened the doors once, and that was enough for the radiation to mutate the roaches. If the security staff really did manage to leave, they probably left the overseer and remaining scientists here to starve to death or get killed by overgrown insects.

Somewhere deep down, I was happy that these Vault-Tec assholes got what they deserved.

A door opening roused me from my thoughts, and before I knew it, I was unholstering my pistol and marching toward the noise. Jeremy had pulled the door's lever, and as it slid slowly open, I thought about reminding him that what he just did was a dumb idea.

Nature got to the task first, however, as the opening door revealed a roach which didn't hesitate to jump straight toward the person nearest to it. Kicking it from the air, I pushed Jeremy out of the way as the bug stabilized itself mid-flight. Hissing, it leapt at me with sharp mandibles dripping foam, but reaching underneath it, I pushed it upwards and thrust my combat knife straight into its underbelly.

Pulling it down its entire length, it kicked with its legs twice then slid off of the blade, twitching.

Wiping the gunk on Jeremy's vault suit, I looked him in the eyes.

"I don't need to tell you why that was a bad idea, do I?" He shook his head, gulping, his knuckles white as they clutched the baton. The others were in a similar state, "No point standing around here now that it's open. Let's go."

As we strode inside, another radroach crawled across the floor of what looked like a canteen. Not a moment later, it was dead with a hole through its body.

"How are ya such a good shot?" Gerald muttered.

"Two hundred years' worth of experience does that to you." I noticed two pistols sitting on a table, and motioned towards them, "Take those, they might come in handy." As I walked into the canteen area, passing by a door leading into the reactor chamber, I scanned the area for any more bugs, but there was no such thing, "Alright..." My eyes settled on the terminal, "I'll check this for info, meanwhile you search for anything useful."

"What counts as useful these days?" Jeremy kicked a mug on the floor.

"Ammo, food, water, medical supplies, electronics. Cigarettes and alcohol are good to, for bargaining, so be sure to take any if you find them."

As they spread out in the kitchen and adjacent barracks, I quickly tapped my way through the terminal, only to come up with no extra information, save for a red menace game holotape. A rare find, though not many people had a pip-boy or terminal to enjoy it these days.

With a sigh, I stood back up and called everyone to gather around the door to the reactors. Two packs of cigarettes, an unopened can of food and a stimpak were shoved into my hand, which I promptly pocketed.

"What next?" Bonnie stared at the window, "You're not telling me you want to go through there."

As I followed her gaze out of the window, a radroach crawled between the two reactors and was promptly fried as a massive blast of high-voltage electricity arced through its body. There it lay, twitching and smoking, clearly dead.

"That's our way through, but I agree, it looks like the perfect way of killing ourselves..." Stroking my chin, a plan quickly formed in my head, "The reactors are normally controlled by the overseer or the science staff, but anything like a lab or an overseer's office can only be past that chamber."

"Yes?" Jeremy asked impatiently.

"But the entire vault's terminals are on one network, so it shouldn't be hard to connect remotely and turn their power down by a decent amount."

"What even causes it to freak out like that? Shouldn't it be safe enough to have people walk beside it?"

"Originally, yes, but this thing's been chugging along for the past two centuries non-stop. Discharge regulator must be giving up on itself some time ago."

They all nodded as if they understood what I had just said and watched as I strode back to the nearest terminal and using my pip-boy, I was through the firewall in five minutes. Vault-Tec has some of the hardest codes to crack, after the military and RobCo of course, but thankfully, my own device was far from standard issue.

Opening the door, three radroaches looked at us in confusion, sparks no longer flashing off of the railings. In turn, three pistols barked, my two shots hitting home, the third killed by one of the others, a lucky shot ricocheting off the floor and passing through its body.

We walked through the chamber, past a skeleton and entered the Overseer's room on the far side. Two more skeletons lay on the floor wearing lab coats, an armoury stood in the corner of the room and a door lead to what was probably the overseer's personal chambers. But right now what was important was getting the reactor back up, before any important systems decided to shut off.

I pushed another skeleton off of the chair, one that had a bullet-sized hole in the front and back of its skull. Upon closer inspection, the headrest of the chair had a bullet embedded in it.

Breaking into the overseer's terminal was, compared to hacking through Vault-Tec's firewall, a piece of cake, and two button presses later I heard the zapping of sparks coming from the reactor chamber once more.

The overseer's logs revealed his side of the story, and by the looks of it, he too was out of the loop when it came to his fate... Stupid fool. He had tried to keep everyone inside, but that had obviously failed.

Then came one final document.

Cryolator.

Opening it, my eyes widened as I read it.

"Portable cryogenic freezing? This sounds interesting..." My eyes wandered over to the armoury, its door ajar, revealing two more pistols scattered across the floor, and an assault rifle hanging from the weapon's rack.

"What's that?" Gerald looked over at me.

"Just something interesting I read... Here take this." I threw Bonnie a pistol laying on the overseer's table, before getting up and striding over to the armoury. The others spread out, once again searching for supplies.

Surprising, how quickly people could adapt. Their faces contorted in disgust as they looked at the skeletons, but that too, would disappear soon enough, just like how their unwillingness to scavenge for supplies had quickly gone down the drain. Their entire life before the bombs had dropped had been guided by laws and rules that were meaningless nowadays. Anyone that had survived outside when the bombs fell knew this, and those that had tried keeping to them quickly died off.

Slinging the assault rifle onto my back and shoving the weapons into my belt, I pocketed the few rounds of ammo still sitting on the rack, and then my eyes settled upon a glass case.

Inside was a gun of some sort, a mess of cables and pipes. Touching the surface of the case, I pulled it back a moment later as the cold stung the tips of my fingers.

"So that's where you are?" Pulling back my hand and clenching it into a fist, I punched through it with my cybernetic arm, the glass shattering and my fingers curling around the handle. It was far more comfortable to hold than what the casing’s temperature made you believe. Peering back into the case, I could see a few cartridges laying inside, "And... I'm keeping this."

"Hey, James?"

"What's the problem?" I looked at Jeremy, standing before the other door.

"This thing doesn't want to open."

"I thought you learned your lesson the first time you opened doors on your own."

"I've got a pistol now, I'm better prepared."

"You ain't prepared for shit." I pushed him out of the way and pulled down on the door handle. There was no hiss, no sound of jamming, no nothing, "Huh... It's not stuck. Just like that other door."

Walking back to the overseer's desk, I searched around a bit in his private vault-tec mail, quickly finding my answer in the oldest one.

A phrase... Two words, that would activate the hidden parts of the device.

Project Genesis

Typing in the secret command, the option to open the door flashed on the screen, and I wasted no time in selecting it. With a hiss and a bit of struggling, the door slid open, Jeremy moving forward, only to stop in his tracks, eyes wide open.

Ever so slowly his arm shakily moved upwards, the safety already off.

"Jeremy!" I hissed, moving closer, "What the fuck do you see?!"

He said nothing as I quickly darted over to help him out, moving around the corner only to find myself staring down half a dozen radroaches, dotted across the walls and ceiling of the corridor. Across from me was one of the biggest radroaches I had ever had the chance to lay my eyes on, easily the size of the door we had just walked through.

I pushed his hand down gently and grabbed him by the chin, turning his head my way.

Holding my finger to my lips, I unslung the rifle from my back and handed it to him. There was an entire magazine's worth of bullets inside, just enough to do the job.

Meanwhile, I took the cryolator into my own hands, and pressed a cartridge into it, unholstering my revolver.

"On three..." I mouthed, "One, two." I aimed down the sights, "Three!"

The assault rifle barked as he fired in bursts, hitting some of them, while two fell down dead from my shots, but the largest of them all just shrugged off everything hitting its carapace, and after a brief moment of confusion, it started towards us at frightening speeds.

"Do something!" Jeremey screamed, his gun empty.I heard the footsteps of the others running towards us, not like they could do much.

It approached incredibly fast and just like that, I was pulling the trigger of the cryolator.

A cloud of white mist erupted from the front, and a cold blast of wind washed over us as the gigantic creature disappeared.

I held up my pistol, waiting for it to emerge from the cloud any second, yet there was no sign of it. As the white mist dissipated, a massive ice statue of a radroach revealed itself to us, frozen in place mid-leap.

"Hoooly-" A single shot of my pistol caused him to flinch and stop mid-sentence, the bullet shattering the creature apart.

"Is everything okay?" Carrie asked, pistol in hand as she ran over.

I kicked the broken pieces of the creature to the side, and gave her a smirk, "It is now. Let's get going."

We strode past the carcasses of the bugs, one still twitching, but nothing that a well-aimed shot to the head couldn't solve. Walking through the door on the far side, we found ourselves in the vault door's chamber once more.

"This it then? We leaving?" Gerald asked, looking at the dead radroaches laying on the ground.

"Yeah. Better than staying in here."

"Why? We're safe, and now that the place is cleared it should be good to stay in, no?"

"If you want to stay inside without food, so be it, but you can't prepare for the horrors of the wasteland by locking yourself away from it."

Nobody argued against that, and walking back onto the elevator, I lifted my pip-boy and scrolled through some of the options I could wirelessly select. One of them was the elevator controls, and a few clicks later, we started our slow ascent upwards.

As the sun appeared above us, and a light breeze blew across my face, my eyes were once again drawn to those containers locked with military-grade locks.

Looking back at my new companions, I quickly made up my mind about what to do with them.

"Alright, we'll have to go our separate ways for now..."

"Wha-"

"Don't worry, I won't leave you alone out here. Jeremy, lead them down to Sanctuary Hills, a few settlers are living there. Tell them I sent you, their leader looks like a cowboy and he's called Preston. I'll be down there soon, you guys settle in until then, maybe start talking with the others and gather some more information about your new surroundings from the others. Just don’t wander off… Sanctuary, and only Sanctuary, otherwise you’re dead."

He gulped, looking around at the three other ex-inhabitants of the vault, before tightening his grip around the handle of his pistol.

"We'll do that." He nodded, "Good luck, and thank you for saving us."

As they walked towards the settlement, I turned my focus towards the containers, striding over to the first of the complex locks, and slinging the cryolator off my shoulder.

A short puff of the chilled cloud of gas and a well-aimed punch later, the lock lay on the floor in dozens of pieces. The hinges of the door were rusty, creaking loudly as I struggled with opening them.

My eyes widened as I finally saw what was inside, jumping back in fright, my pistol aimed at the contents in a heartbeat.

Nothing emerged from inside, everything was quiet, so I pushed the door the remainder of the way and stared up at what could easily have been my demise.

A sentry bot, deactivated.

Even in such a state, it still filled me with anxiety standing this close to one with nothing more than a pistol and a portable fridge to defend myself with. These things could single-handedly take out an entire platoon's worth of soldiers. Even for its size, it was clear it wasn't the only inhabitant of the container, and peering past it, I saw an assaultron head or two.

"Shit..." I rubbed my head, "This is a treasure trove!" I laughed. Quickly opening the one beside it, I found inside piles of military-grade equipment. Stacks of ammo, combat armour, assault rifles, laser weaponry and who knew what was hidden deeper inside, "Now this... This I wasn't expecting."

I smiled, staring at the other containers. There were still five more left unopened, out of which one more was this big, the rest small in comparison. No matter, at this point I couldn't even begin to imagine the contents of the rest. More weapons? More robots?

But why would Vault-Tec need all this stuff? This vault was far from holding massive secrets, and from what I had seen down there, it definitely didn't require an elite army to defend it.

My eyes wandered back to the sentry bot, a smile spreading over my face. Whatever the story behind these was, it wasn't important.

"Their loss..." I smiled, patting one of its legs.