Reactor 5

"Are you Festus?" Sativa asked of the ghoul in the supervisor's office.
He looked particularly unkempt and glum looking, with a particularly rancid appearance and the body odour of an infected wound. "Are you the one in charge?"

Despite his appearance she hoped the answer was yes. She'd had to search the whole place, acquire three coloured keycards and just wanted to hand over the part before the feeling of these steel walls closing in around her became too much to bear. Or all her hair fell out from the radiation leaking out all over the place. One or the other.

"Yep, I run the whole reactor," he said. "Without me, this whole town would be shut down. I'm a very busy man. They really overwork me here..."

"Well, I have a part that you can use to fix the reactor," she replied, holding out the Hy-Mag.

The ghoul took the part and examined it from every angle, before replying hesitantly, "You know, I'm not so sure that this is the right part after all. Maybe you should take it back to Vault City to check. I don't think I can help you with this, after all."

"I'm sure it's the right part," she insisted. "I have..."

"The people I got running it mean well, but... well, they are not the sharpest tools in the shed. If you know what I mean."

"...great confidence in your abilities."

He looked back at her, remaining stubbornly unconvinced. "I don't think that those people in Vault City really like us all that much. I wouldn't put it past them to booby-trap this part. Maybe it only looks like the right part, and it's really a bomb! You can't fool me that easily. I'm not installing this thing."

"With your technical expertise, if it were a bomb, you would already know it. Please, just. Install. The part."

"Okay, I'm here. But I'm still not sure that this isn't the right part, or that it's not a trap somehow. You know, I'm much too valuable to waste. Maybe I should just let someone else do this... later... much later."

"It needs to be done now," she insisted. "And you're the only person that can do it right. Come on, all Gecko depends on you!"

She felt a tap on her shoulder as Cassidy whispered in her ear, "Much as I wanna stand around here all day, are you really sure we wanna trust it with to guy?"

"Do you trust anyone else to? One of us, maybe?" she asks back, shaking her head before turning back to Festus. "Can you at least show us where we need to put it?"

Scratching his flaking chin, he nodded, "I guess so. I am the supervisor, of course."

The group followed the ghoul who led them, very slowly to the reactor control room. A window gave them a view of the heart of the reactor and a very thin barrier between them and painful death.

Festus directed their attention to a computer terminal. "Station #3 Reactor Maintenance & Repair Robot Control Terminal. You probably ain't all that keen on going inside yourselves, so I figure if you can get that machine up and running from here you can have it do all that for you."

"Uh-huh," said Sativa, whose only prior experience with an automaton was bashing it to pieces for trying to kill her. She took one look at the computer and turned to her companions to remind them, "Look, I grew up in a village, just in case any of you think I'm remotely qualified to handle this. I shouldn't really have to explain this."

Cassidy shrugged. This was, admittedly, out of his range of expertise, limited as it was to pouring drinks and 'killing the shit out of things.' None of the spirits Sulik consulted had any ancient wisdom regarding power plant repair systems. "Uh, boss?" Vic raised his hands. "I might be able to give it a shot."

She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Really? You've worked with robots before?"

"No," he admitted, "But I can follow instructions pretty good..." He picked up a thick manual handily located next to the terminal and leafed through its plastic-covered pages. "I've managed to get an old computer up and running a few times, too. Couldn't really do a lot with them, but I think I got the gist."

She stepped aside to let him use the terminal. "All right, I'll leave it up to you."

Vic beamed as he stepped up to take his place. "I won't let you down, boss."

"I hope you don't. I really don't want to die here."

"No pressure, huh? Okay, let's see here..." he tapped instructions painfully slowly, one key at a time with his index fingers and his tongue sticking out to one side.

Tertiary Functional Access Code Accepted. RM&RR Unit warming up... Unit ready for service. Service Procedure?

"I'm in! Okay... 'Initiate Coolant Maintenance Sequence.' That should-" The machine bleeped uncooperatively.

RM&RR unit roll-out initiated.
Checking Drive Systems... OK
Checking-Manipulator Arm... OK
Checking Internal Stabilizer... OK
Logic Circuits... FAIL

"The Logic Circuits failed. I wonder what that means." Tat-tap...

Logic Circuits damaged. In emergency, RM&RR unit may be directed manually.

Everyone else stood around uncomfortably waiting while Vic entered the commands one-by-one, checking the manual at every step. "...Amplify Plutonium-Gamma Shield... Deharmonize Neptunium Impeller... Calibrate Uranium-Rod Driver... Set Voltage on Saturn-Class Capacitor... I guess it knows how to do that... Test Jupiter Wave Complier whatever those are..."

Finally a hatch opened, ready for a component to be placed into the receptacle. "Okay, that's it! Now we just have to install Hydroelectric Magnetosphere Regulator and we're all set."

With the part placed and the sequenced initialized, all they could do was hold their breath as the robot moved across the reactor floor in a complicated pattern, making half a dozen right-angled turns before reaching the end of its journey and extending the part to embed it into a bank of machinery lining the far wall.

Cassidy broke the silence. "Should we running yet?"

"No, that looks good," Festus answered, watching a random light in the control room turn green. Sighs of relief erupted, earning Vic many heavy-handed pats on the back and calls of "Attaboy!" and "Good job not screwing up and killing us all!"

"So does mean the reactor won't leak anymore?" Sativa asked Festus, wanting to make absolutely sure their work here was done.

"The reactor's running pretty good now, all right," the ghoul nodded, then adding "Could still do with a tiny bit of a tuneup, mebbe, but I'd say it's a pretty good job all the same."

"More work?" She asked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that the reactor's running now, but it sure could run better. I mean better by a long country mile, if we jist had a smidge more data. Now if you could get the optimization data, we'd be cooking with gas. Uh, well, you know what I mean."

"Optimization data? Where would I get that?"

"Well, you could probably get the information from the Vault City central computer."

"Hmm, that's a thought." Now that she was sure to get her citizenship, she should be able find that along with the Vault location she was looking for.

"I bet a clever one like you could jist sneak in there and use a holodisk with the reactor performance information on the central computer. Then sneak the disk right back here. That'd do it. I'd do it myself, but I'm just too valuable here to leave, even for a moment..."

Overhearing, Vic chimed in, "Or we might be able to do it from here. It says this terminal allows access to something called PoseidoNet. Some kind of network, I think."

Sativa looked over at Vic. "Would there even be anything left to connect to?"

"Only one way to find out... okay, here we go..."

Uplink with central PosiedoNet initiated.
Searching Comlinks...
Searching...
Iron Mountain... Offline
NORAD... Offline
SAC... Offline
Searching PoseidoNet...
--More?--
Active PoseidoNet Stations:
Atomic Powerplant #5
Navarro Refinery
Control Station ENCLAVE
ENCLAVE Vault-Research Control... AccessDenied

Vic frowned. "Everything's shut down except for the ENCLAVE Vault-Research Control. I wonder what that is?" He tapped on the keyboard and pressed Enter.

Everyone almost jumped back as the text on the screen disappeared, replaced by what appeared to be a live video feed.

Someone stared back at them.

And spoke.

"ENCLAVE here."

Sorry, wrong number.

They all recognised the face, except for Cassidy. Well the lack of face, covered by a steel helmet with thick tubes curving backwards over the top like demon horns and opaque yellow lenses where eyes should be.

"...ENCLAVE here. Why isn't your video feed working?" the heavily filtered voice asked. It was by some stroke of luck the communication operator couldn't see who he was talking to.

Vic gestured to the others, silently urging someone to day something. Sativa remained quietly rooted to the spot with a look on her face the old trader recognised. It was not a look she often had, which worried him in no small amount.

Thinking quickly, Cassidy stepped up to the mic. "Uh, it's working just fine. I can see you."

"Who the hell is this?"

"Uh, this is..." He made some random static noises, "...caau, rit, sss, pu- ...ear me. Over."

"Try the gain," the operator suggested, sounding like someone who had to put up the technologically-impaired all damn day.

Vic shrugged at Cassidy, mouthing, just keep talking.

"There, that should do it. Any better?"

"That didn't make a damn bit of difference. I'm still not gettin' a damn thing. Who are you?"

"Well, that's not unusual, is it?" Cassidy asked, dodging the question like the stinger of a Radscorpion. "Nothing works right anymore."

"Huh, ain't it the truth," the operator commiserated, warning, "Just don't let anyone who's got the President's ear hear that. You'll be making cattle-runs to New Reno 'til the end of time, pal."

Cassidy failed his witty retort check. "...the President?"

"Yeah, you know how unhappy he gets when people complain. He takes it personal, like it's a loyalty thing. Maybe that just goes with being the President of the United States... Or what's left of 'em."

"...The President of the United States?" He was kind of stuck on this.

"The President of the United-fucking-States-of-America," the operator repeated. "Who'd you think I was talking about?" He spluttered, "Who the fu - Who is - What - I should kick your fucking ass, who is this?"

This conversation wasn't going anywhere good. And if these ENCLAVE guys were able to track the source of the call somehow, it would only keep going south. "Uh, I better be going... Lots of work to do here... Goodbye!" Cassidy made frantic cut-the-damn-thing-off motions with his hand at Vic, who hurriedly killed the connection.

The aging bartender ran his palms back over his bald head as the screen shrank to black, muttering, "Holy shit. The President... the fuckin' President of the... what the hell's going on? And what's this Enclave shit about?"

"I'm not really sure," Vic replied. "But that helmet looked awfully familiar. Right, Sulik? Hey Boss, what do you - Boss?"

Sativa was no longer in the room.

It took them ten minutes to catch up with her, and another hour for her to come anywhere close to calm.

Living Histories

Harold was one of a kind. It's hard what it was about him, but he was good to talk with.

"Mighty kind o' ya helping us out with the atomic power plant. We're in your debt."

"I didn't want to see Vault City destroy your town," she told him, sitting across from him at his desk. And she didn't want to be the one that to do it, either.

"Mighty kind a'ya," he said again, wheezing. "Not many smoothskins would do that for a town full of ghouls. Kinda reminds me of a smoothie I knew, way back when."

She frowned. "Another smoothie? What do you mean?"
"Another smoothskin. Had a lot of respect for that one."
"Who was that?"

"Well, I could probably remember if I wasn't dead. I never get tired of that joke," he laughed, which predictably led to more coughing.

"Maybe you don't..."

"Well, to be honest, can't remember the name. But they wore a funny suit. Kinda like the one you're wearing." He said pointing at her in her Vault suit. It was preferable to her leathers when she'd started to feel uncomfortably warm inside the power plant. Harold knew her grandfather?

"Oh, this old thing? This is the Vault Suit that my ancestor wore. It's a totem of my holy quest."

"That so? Well, well, well. That explains a thing or two. I wondered why you looked familiar. I'm not losing the last coupla marbles I got left."

"We really look alike?" She didn't have any memories of what he looked like and the big stone head carved in his honor in the middle of the village reflected more of an idealistic representation than any actual real appearance.

"There is a resemblance. Near as I can remember, anyways. You know, your ancestor saved the whole darn lot of us."

"He saved all of the ghouls?"

"Jumpin' to conclusions, youngster. That's gonna get your ass shot off someday. All of us. Saved every two-legged-shuffler on the dang planet."

"You mean with how he defeated the Master."

"Now yer gettin' it. And what happened next? For a thank you, the damn high-and-mighty Vaulties booted the Vault Dweller out. I always wondered what happened after that."

That much she knew. "I can tell you what happened."

Harold leaned forward. "Well, I'd sure like to hear that."

She recited legend as it was told to her starting with his journey to the north and those that followed him, about the village he created, about the Garden Of Eden Creation Kit and her own quest. "...and so that's why I'm looking for Vault 13 now."

Harold listened, quietly. "Thanks for telling. I sure was curious all these years. You sure got your work cut out for ya. Huh, ya know..."

"Know what?"

Harold opened a desk drawer sifted through the clutter to pull out a handful of medical stimpaks, as well as two or three Super-Stims: highly effective, but also highly harmful in too many doses. "Well, I been saving these for a rainy day, but it sounds like you're gonna need 'em more than I ever will. Here, take these."

She shoved the supplies into her pack. "Thanks for everything, Harold. I better be going though. Goodbye."

"Anytime, friend," Harold coughed.


Lenny, the ghoul that had stitched her face up earlier stopped her before she left. "I h-heard you talking w-with Harold, that you're the d-descendant of the Vault Dweller."

She nodded. "That's right."
"You know, I met the Vault Dweller once."
"You met my ancestor?"
"W-well, he stuttered, "I didn't actually m-meet the V-vault Dweller. But I saw 'im. Once."

"You saw him? Where?" It was inconceivable that she should meet one person still alive that knew her grandfather, let alone two.

"I-it w-was a long time ago. In a place called N-necropolis. A lot of us g-ghouls lived there. One, day I saw someone running through the city."

"Running?"

"Yes, running. You see, we ghouls c-can't run too much anymore. So, I knew it was an outsider when I saw them. They ran by so close I could have touched them. I wish that I had joined the Vault Dweller."

"You wanted to join my grandsire?"
"Yes. I h'had the chance of a lifetime and I blew it."
"What do you mean?"

"L-later, I h-heard that the Vault Dweller had fixed our water system. The V-vault Dweller saved us - all of us. Do you understand? It didn't matter that we were ghouls. For once it didn't matter. We w-were people again. W-worth saving."

"My ancestor was the founder of our tribe," she told Lenny. "That memory is revered amongst my people."

"Later, I heard that the Vault Dweller destroyed the source of the m-mutant army," he continued. "The Vault D-dweller saved all of us. Human and ghoul alike. I could have been a part of that, but I lacked the c-courage. I've never forgiven m-myself."

She thought about this, long and hard, before making a decision. Sure, he was old and jittery and likely to fall apart in a light breeze, but she wasn't about to turn away a helping hand. "I am following in my ancestor's footsteps. Would you like another chance? Will you join me?"

Lenny's smile was so wide that she was worried his jaw would fall off. "I'm h-happier than a bull b-brahmin in a pasture-full o' cows! I'd b-be honored to j-join you. I m-may be old and I cain't m-move t-too darn fast, leastways not for too long, b-but I kin sure p-patch you up when y-you need it."

She couldn't be sure of a steady supply of Stimpaks. "I'm glad that you can join me. I'm sure that your healing skills will come in handy. Only..."

"W-what?"

"Could you try not to stutter so much?"

"W-well I can sure t-try b-but..."

"...Never mind. Just let me know when you're ready."