Chapter 18: Chapter 18

The tour of the vault was interesting, despite Piper’s initial impression. That a whole town’s worth of people could live underground without breaking down was a feat even without the risk of raiders and wasteland monstrosities.

As Overseer McNamara led them through the halls, they got curious looks, some even disapproving. They were all harmless with the odd chatter about young kids surviving up on the surface, so it was still a nice change from leering raiders or the violent glares of super mutants.

The people that did come up to greet them were nice enough, like the typical town settler or caravan folk she’d met while travelling with Sev, though there was an annoying sense of being judged or patronised from most of them. Piper could almost feel their ignorance from being stuck safely underground without raiders or radstorms to worry about.

Nat simply stating that Sev saved them from raiders basically killed any stupid question they might have had, though Piper was tempted to see how they’d react if she told them she had willingly gave herself to Sev.

Probably not good, but it’d be fun.

The food they offered in the lone diner was good, better than the fare from scavenged old world boxes or poorly processed razorgrain, but it was still a far cry from the stuff Sev provided. There was a decadence missing in them, she felt.

Sev spent some time talking with the three lab coat vaulters about hydroponics, asking various questions like growth rates and nutrition which she kept note of but didn’t really follow. Piper smirked as she saw him touch the various tools like the hydroponic boxes, the sprinklers and the lighting. No doubt he’d create his own copies in the Tupile later.

He talked some more in the medical bay, innocently tapping their tools to inquire about them, or sharing his own information on how effective stimpaks were in situations the vault dwellers probably never faced before, like gun and laser shots or getting a limb crushed by a tank.

Dropping by the schoolroom caught Nat’s attention, and Piper had to admit she saw how useful and maybe it would be. Thankfully the overseer and her guards kept the children from mobbing them with questions, though Piper had to stop Nat from telling the full story about being saved by Sev again. She didn’t think these kids, or their teacher could handle it.

Towards the end of the long tour, Sev managed to persuade the overseer and the head of maintenance to have a look at their generator room. The three of them winced at the sight of a battered Mr Handy bot, but other than that, she saw Sev study the room a bit too deeply, before offering to help refurbish both the robot and the generators.

Of course they doubted his offer, which then made Sev walk up to a wall panel at the back of the room and tap it. The panel fell open, revealing a hidden door. Judging from its construction, it was like another vault behind it.

“So...you sure you don’t want me to have a look?” he asked the astonished vaulters.

So he knew about the hidden space, Piper realised. Was that why they were really here? A sense of adventure tingled up her spine, and she found herself adding her two caps.

“Sev’s right, we’ve seen way more of the wasteland than you guys, more than most people,” Piper said dismissively, ignoring the offended looks from the guards. “And it’ll make for a fu-”

The door opened and something leapt out. Sev caught it with a good right kick and then stomped hard on it. The ambusher was disgusting, a mole rat covered in blisters and weeping pores that smelled of rot. Nat coughed to fight back the urge to gag, but Piper kept up her brave face successfully.

“I suggest nobody touch the corpse with their bare hands?” Sev commented lightly, then looked at Overseer McNamara. “Again, sure you don’t want me to look? At the least it gives your people time to set up in case we don’t make it back.”

After she relented while the guards got the doctor to study the mole rat, Sev asked Piper and Nat the obvious question. “So, wanna join me? In and out, twenty minutes adventure.”

Of course both sisters drew their guns and followed Sev in.

The area beyond the door pretty soon revealed itself to be another vault secretly running beside Vault 81, worn to rust and dirt from disuse and cave-ins.

“Lots of cave ins, but with some work the people in Vault 81 could probably use the expansion.”

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“You gonna help them repair this place?”

“... Maybe, depends I guess.”

Sev let himself get bit by a mole rat erupting from the ground and gave a mildly surprised ‘huh’ before asking Nat to blast it off.

“Right, these mole rats are highly diseased and toxic and generally bad for most people’s health. Thankfully for us, we’re not most people, so if they manage to somehow bite you or you get any bits of them in your mouth or eyes or nose, you’ll be fine.”

“Eewww...”

They kept moving, Sev instructing them to methodically clear out each room of mole rats. Some parts of the vault seem to have either caved in or been compromised by the rats’ digging, but Sev created some grenades for them to toss down any burrows they came across.

It was quite satisfying seeing the little tunnels explode with puffs of dirt and sometimes gore.

The vault’s security turrets and protectrons were still operational, though Sev simply dispatched them without hassle and studied the wrecks, probably for future cloning.

They then encountered a room filled with prison cells and some mole rats in them, as well as observation devices to listen in on certain rooms of Vault 81.

Sev explained that these mole rats came from experiments long ago, infected with practically every disease known to man in hopes of finding something called a ‘Panacea’. The terminals Piper encountered proved his story’s veracity, which made the whole thing a truly horrific story of the pre-war past, though at least it failed in spreading their testing to unwitting people.

A glowing mole rat popped up from a patch of soil, and promptly got popped out of existence by Piper’s shots. Nat whined a bit at having been beaten to the punch, making the victory feel more satisfying.

“Should be the last of it,” Sev remarked with a surety that Piper had learned early in their journey to take as fact. They then made their way up to more lab rooms, where a Mr Handy- no, a Ms Nanny robot politely greeted them.

Again, Sev looked like he expected the encounter, smiling easily and persuading the robot calling itself Curie to open the door. After receiving a vial of ‘broad spectrum cure’, Piper was even more convinced it was the main reason Sev was here. That, and Curie itself as he invited her to join them. She couldn’t help but frown at his rather cheery interaction with the robot.

Did Sev have a thing for robots?

“Ah, great. The girls could definitely need a teacher of your caliber,” Sev said once Curie accepted. It only bobbed in place as if nodding.

“It would be my pleasure assisting in the upbringing of future generations. I admit it would also be good to be able to impart the results of our research.”

Then they talked a bit about publishing journals and going exploring with them. Nat looked a bit bored, not following the conversation at all, but Piper had an idea of how much Sev valued the robot’s skill. It was not as affectionate as what he had for her and Nat, but there was a definite sense of bonding going on.

She really hoped he wasn’t going to drill a hole in it and fuck it.

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