Episode 1: An Ignominious Exit From Vault 76

It's been two days since I left Vault 76. Those first few minutes outside were a shock. I'd seen holotapes showing blue sky, and trees with colorful leaves, and distant mountains, but the real experience was nothing like I expected. It made me feel kind of small and defenseless. Having lived outside for two days now, I realize that feeling is completely appropriate!

At first, the light outside was so bright it hurt my eyes. It took some time to adjust, and I still haven't learned to keep my gaze lowered when looking in the direction of the sun. The light it puts off is blinding! The first few minutes Outside were full of unexpected surprises. As soon as I stepped through the vault entrance and that big door closed behind me, I took a couple of steps forward and felt a breeze blow across my face, bringing with it some interesting smells. I didn't know what most of them were at the time, but I think now it must have been the smells of the grass and soil. I was surprised by the sound the wind made in my ears when it picked up speed, a kind of haunted whining sound that gave me goosebumps.

Tristan's First Moments Outside

I left the vault alone, and I think I must've been the last resident to leave. It's kind of funny - the Firstborn left the vault last! Among those of us born in Vault 76, I had lived there the longest. Twenty-Four years! We were supposed to leave the vault in groups of five, each group having one security officer and four trained specialists. Some groups had six or even seven with children, but the standard group size was five. My group had three men and two women. Martin the Elder, Pete, Alicia, Sarah and me. Sarah was a replacement for Robin. 

If I survive out here, maybe I'll write about Robin someday.

I was to be one of the artisans in my group. We also had a healer and a builder. We'd all done some cross-training, but my specialty was engineering and design. That's what I'd been training for since elementary school. They didn't want me in the group after what happened to Robin, but the Overseer had set the groups up before she left, so they were stuck with me. Maybe the Overseer's long absence gave them the courage to just leave without me.

I think someone must have drugged my Nuka Cola at the Reclamation Day party. I woke up feeling disoriented with a terrible headache. When I tried to open the door and see if I could get some medicine from the infirmary, I found the door to my residence locked, just like when I volunteered for the Isolation Test Program. I tried pounding on the door, but none of the Handies were around to help. They'd all been stationed at different places to hand out supplies to residents as they departed. I had to use my Pip-Boy and override the circuits to get the door open. By that time, the warning announcements had started, telling us to leave soon before the vault was sealed again. I don't know what would've happened if I couldn't get the door open. Probably one of the Handies would have come looking for me eventually. But if they hadn't, I might've suffocated in there when the air filtration system turned off and the vault closed for good.

My group must really hate me to leave me like that, not knowing for sure if I would get out alive. I can understand them not wanting to have me around, but they went way too far locking me in! They could've just abandoned me after we left. I'm a little surprised that Alicia would go along with the others. She was Robin's best friend and knew the whole story. Maybe Martin lied to the others, or maybe he and Sarah worked together on it and didn't tell the others what they were planning. If I run into them outside, I'll be sure to ask them about that!

I tried to get into the infirmary to find some medicine for my aching head, but the door leading there was already sealed. Most of the doors had already been sealed as I made my way toward the Vault entrance. I knocked on every door I could access to see if anyone else had been drugged or left behind, but I didn't find anyone. To be honest, I kind of wish I had. It's not safe being Outside alone.

There were strict rules about what we could take Outside with us. I don't know why they wouldn't let us take some of our personal things. I had some Sugar Bombs left, and a package of Blamco Mac and Cheese that I could have eaten the first night, and I wouldn't have minded having some Nuka Cola in my little pack. I'm gonna miss the weekly special rations. I nearly always chose a Nuka Soda of some sort and Sugar Bombs. They distributed the last Sugar Bombs a couple of weeks before Reclamation Day, so I guess it really was time to go, but I'm gonna miss them.

Sugar Bombs - The Breakfast of Champions

I did manage to get into the security office and look at one of the computers. I wanted to see if I could confirm that Martin the Elder had been the one to lock me in my room, but most of the entries had been erased. I also found the door to the Overseer's residence open. I checked her computer, and though I didn't find any evidence that it had been used to lock my door, I did find something interesting about a secret mission the Overseer was planning to undertake.

Her job was to find three nuclear sites in the area and secure them. The orders sounded like they were from before the Vault officially closed. Vault Tec told her to ignore any governments and take control of the sites! At the time I laughed at the idea of "other governments" because we thought that all of the survivors had fled Appalachia. That was our understanding of the situation up to the point when we lost our last Eyebot Observer last year. It wasn't until I left the vault that I discovered there were still people living in Appalachia, and more coming all the time to find some kind of treasure. Not finding the evidence I was looking for, I finally picked up the last of my approved supplies and left the vault.

The first thing I noticed after adjusting to the new sights and smells was a body lying maybe 50 meters away to the right of the entrance. I don't know if the others missed it, or if they just didn't want to get close to it, but it was the decayed corpse of someone who had probably been dead for some time. Possibly a year or more. I couldn't tell the sex for sure because of the decay. They were wearing some kind of uniform with a symbol on it – a kind of shield with a heart in the middle. I probably should have taken a picture with my Pip-Boy. Although the person had been dead a long time, the body still had a bad smell, but I covered my mouth and nose with a piece of cloth from among the supplies we were given, and moved in closer to see if there might be anything valuable on the body. 

I used the toes of my new Reclamation Day boots to prod the body, and when the left arm moved, I saw there was something under it. Turned out to be a weapon! What they call a pistol or handgun. But it didn't look like any weapon we learned about in school. I think it might have been hand made. It still had some bullets in it, and there were some more in the pocket of the person's uniform. Thinking it might be handy to have, I checked how it worked – it was primitive but seemed functional – and put it in my backpack for safekeeping. I also found some old currency and some kind of injectable drug. Someone had handwritten the word "Overdrive" on the side. A stimulant, maybe.

Hand Made Pipe Pistol

When I stood up and went to the railing to get away from the lingering smell of the body, I could see down into the parking lot below the vault. There were these little robots down there with big red stars on them, kind of like the lucky star on my bedroom wall inside the Vault. They made this weird clicking noise when they walked on their many legs. I shaded my eyes and leaned over the railing to get a better look, and one of them shot a laser beam at me! It grazed my left arm, and burned like acid. It was like I had leaned against a hot bar or something and singed my skin.

I crouched at the railing for a few seconds and then ran for the vault door where I dug the pistol back out of my pack. I also pulled out one of my five Stimpaks thinking I would use it to help lessen the pain. But when I looked and saw that there were only five Stimpaks, I decided it might be smarter to wait. Who knew when I might ever find any more? The burn hurt worse than any injury I'd ever had, but it was just pain. It didn't affect my ability to use my arm. So I decided I needed to bear it until I could get myself settled somewhere safe.

I waited with pistol in hand to see if the robots would climb the stairs to come investigate, but fortunately they stayed put. That was a relief. We did some mock target practice with laser training-pistols in high school, but I wasn't sure how that would compare to using a gun with bullets, and I didn't really want to find out. So I snuck back toward the vault door in a crouch, thinking I would exit the other way, along the designated path with the balloons and bunting. Maybe the Handy stationed down there would come to my aid if the red star robots followed.

I made my way down the stairs toward a Handy named Pennington who was waiting there to greet me. He told me that there were two people down below asking questions about the Vault. They were apparently trying to get inside. This made me more nervous than the little robots. We knew something about the raider culture that had existed before the exodus out of Appalachia, and I wondered if they might be lying in wait to kill us and take our supplies as we left the vault. I hoped that Pennington would come to my rescue if they started shooting, but I held the pistol in my hand as I carefully descended those stairs, just in case.

A sign just outside the Vault entrance advertising the Wayward

Turns out they were two women who were trying to find some kind of big treasure that a lot of people in Appalachia are looking for. They had come here from a place called The Wayward. I had seen a hand-painted sign referring to this place up above, just outside the Vault door. Almost like they knew we would be coming out of the Vault and would be looking for a place with other people. It didn't occur to me at the time, but now I think maybe they did know. Maybe when they talked to the Overseer, she told them to expect us.

The two women referred to the Wayward as a “bar” and said that someone there took the last of their caps (which is apparently a way to buy things here on the Outside) for some information about where to find a big treasure. The information was that the treasure was inside Vault 76! This made me smile, knowing that the supplies in there are nearly all gone now, although the trophy I won for best hair in the vault is gold in color and still in my trophy case!

I had to tell them that I didn't know about any treasure and besides, the Vault is closed up for good. They were disappointed to hear that, which is understandable. They offered to answer any questions I might have for them, so I asked them about finding weapons. I had those robots on my mind. I didn't have any weapons other than the gun, and one of them offered me a handheld weapon called a machete. It was very nice of them, and made me think that maybe Outsiders weren't all bad. I thought about asking where they were going next and suggesting we travel together, but I just wasn't sure if I was ready to trust Outsiders with my life just yet. What if they decided to take my gun or my other supplies in the night and run off somewhere? No, I decided it would be best to try to find one of the other groups from the Vault, or maybe the Overseer, and see if I could travel with them. So I wished the two women luck and bid them good-bye. I would come to regret that move only a couple of minutes later.

I kept moving down the long stairway, and as I neared the bottom, I heard this strange mechanical sound, like a robot voice, but not one that seemed to be speaking English. A second or two later, I heard a familiar clicking sound, and then suddenly there were laser beams firing at me from two different locations. One of them hit me in the leg. It felt like a giant, hot needle being jammed into my calf. I was kind of exposed, without anything to hide behind, so I followed our training from high school. I crouched to try to make myself smaller, pulled the pistol from my belt, and started firing at one of the robots.

Red Star Robot (aka Liberator)

My first couple of shots were wild, and it gave the little red star robots time to hit me again, this time in the left shoulder. The pain was huge! Worse than the wound in the calf. But it also focused my mind. Things seemed to slow down, and even though I thought this might be the end for me, I got my aim under control and managed to kill one of the robots with three shots before either could hit me again. The second robot hit me one more time in the left arm, a pretty serious wound that I would discover afterward made it hard for me to close my hand. No blood from any of these wounds, thankfully, but they hurt so much that I thought I was going to faint. Desperate by this point, I extended my right arm, almost willing the pistol to close the distance between me and the robot. I knew I was about out of bullets and that it would take some time to reload, especially with my injured left arm. Luck was with me, though, and the next shot hit the robot and it toppled over backward, so I ran to it and pummeled it with the machete until it stopped moving.

After I was sure it was dead, I slumped to the ground, feeling sick, and decided that if I was to survive the day, I would need to use one of those Stimpaks. The relief was almost immediate. Stimpaks have nanites to help repair tissue damage and a pain block so that a person can continue to function normally even when pretty seriously injured. They were designed for the military, but came into common use about a decade before the Great War. Within seconds of the injection I started to feel better, and I could tell that the nanites were working under the skin to repair my injuries. Within a minute or so I felt good enough to move again, but this time, I moved much more cautiously. I decided I needed to find some shelter, and maybe something to eat. I was down to my last two bullets and would need more than that if I encountered any more red-star robots.

I'm getting a little sleepy now. It's been a long couple of days. I'll leave it there for today and continue in the morning.