Miranda glared at me.
"You really think the people outside are so damn generous?"
I exhaled, masking a groan.
"Yes, Miranda. Not all of them, but some for sure."
"Like that trader who charged us forty caps for a stimpak? The one who sold us fungus-infested bloatfly meat? The raiders who beat up the guards to within an inch of their lives before running off with all our combat rifles?"
"No, like the one who gave Dr. Penske bags of fertiliser for free. And the one who brought the kids a bag full of toys. And that one guy from Diamond City who drew up plans for shoring up the wall breach we had in the reactor room, in exchange for one of Maria's homemade pies. Want me to go on?"
"No, there's no need. The way you chose to conveniently forget all the others who lied, cheated and stole from us, it's obvious you're driven more by your agenda than your brain." She sighed. "You're a hard worker, Neil. But I wish you weren't so damn naïve."
With that, she brushed past me, heading for the elevator down to the vault proper. We had had so many arguments on this subject that nowadays just being around Miranda brought on one of my frequent migraines. I could feel the beginnings of one even now, its tendrils creeping up my temples. I turned back to the vault schematics I was poring over before Miranda had come by, but I could no longer concentrate on them. I rubbed my eyes and sighed. I needed some tea.
Grabbing my mug, I headed for the elevator. Scott, the security head, gave me a compassionate glance as I walked past him. Scott was a powerful, assertive man who commanded the respect of his security team. That last raider attack notwithstanding, he had managed to keep Vault 81's dwellers unmolested throughout the past decade, ever since the Overseer had opened it up to the Commonwealth. He could be fiery and hot-headed in his dealings with the outsiders, but like everyone else he gave Miranda a wide berth.
I got in the elevator and pushed the button to go down to the residential area. The ride was silent, but the light flickered and hissed, interrupting my internal monologue. It got on my nerves. I needed to replace that light soon, I told myself. I had been getting more sensitive these past few months, for some reason. The migraines which had plagued me since puberty, were becoming more frequent. I couldn't fathom why. For a vault dweller, I was in reasonable shape. At 27, I had spent the entirety of my life within its walls. Had all my shots, exercised daily, ate the vault-grown fruits and veggies - which, despite Dr. Penske's best efforts, tasted of nothing. Dr. Forsythe, the resident clinician and researcher, had told me to take it easy. Keep away from the reactor room. Maybe it was the nuclear fallout leaking in from all the wall breaches we'd had over the years, he had muttered.
I was still a teenager when I saw my first outsider. She was a trader. Tanned, liver spotted skin peeked out from under her numerous leather coverings. Coverings which themselves were cracked and, in some places, bloodied. Contrasted with hers, my pale, smooth skin looked lifeless. Sure, I had my fair share of bumps and bruises over the years but the Vault-tec stimpaks - and whatever else Dr. Forsythe mixed in them - usually made all the scars and blemishes disappear. Later in my life, I had seen more outsiders, especially these past couple of years when I had been posted on the upper level to work on the crumbling infrastructure over there. Some of them had looked better than the first one, some of them considerably worse. I didn't talk to them much, per Scott's orders -- and Miranda's righteous indignation. But whenever I managed to lock eyes with one of them, I could see the pain. And they could see it in mine. We might not share physical afflictions, but we did the psychological ones.
The elevator doors opened and I stepped out into the atrium. I made a beeline for Maria's diner. Austin and Erin, two of the vault's youngest, bounded around a corner and ran past me. Probably off to investigate whatever new ventilation shaft or hole in the wall they had stumbled across this time. Being vault kids was hard. The near-sterile atmosphere, white fluorescent lights, boring food, growing up seeing the same people all the time... it was incessantly boring. The school teacher Katy empathised with them and did her best to keep them occupied with homework and virtual field trips -- through holotape recordings of cities and zoos before the bombs fell - but privately she was frustrated. There's only so much the kids can learn about the world being locked away from it.
I slid in one of the diner's bench seats and ordered a tea from Maria. It was just muttfruit leaves steeped in water overnight, popped in one of the reactor's steam vents to heat it up before serving. Maria did what she could with the limited power and water allocations she had. I sat with my face in my hands for I don't know how long. I definitely had a migraine coming on. I felt that familiar throb in my temples, which would soon give way to a mind-numbing ache. It wasn't because of my argument with Miranda earlier, no. It was that damned door which I had been obsessing over for the past two weeks.
At first, it had been a distraction. Just a regular sliding door, it was situated right next to where I worked on the upper floor. Rather,
had
been working for the past two months, in my latest posting. I needed to figure out the best way to brace the rock wall near the vault entrance. The guards who worked the entrance had noticed the deep cracks forming in the wall, and feared the whole thing would just come crashing down on them one day. So I had been pulled from my previous post at the residence rooms to investigate the severity of the issue. The work was simple enough, but it took time running tests, conducting structural analyses, drawing up the plans, gathering material and recruiting personnel for bracing. Routine gig. However, two weeks ago all activity on that project had stopped as I was stuck waiting for bags of cement which a trader had been asked to procure. One day, bored out of my mind, I had noticed the door. And the fact that it wouldn't open.
I'm no electronics expert but I've managed to fix a few circuits before. A laser turret. Old terminals in the schoolroom. Some medical equipment Dr. Forsythe needed. But this one was plain stubborn. I had tried to hack into the programming from whatever circuitry I could find on my side of the door. I eventually realised there was a terminal on the other side keeping it locked shut. The door was simply inaccessible from this side. I tried brute-forcing, using the Overseer's override, even took a wrench to the door in a moment of frustration, but it wouldn't budge.
I wondered what was on the other side. Putting my ear to the metal, I could sometimes hear water dripping. I could discern hum of machinery, but that could've been from anywhere in the vault. Who was to say this door didn't lead outside? Maybe it was a secret passageway. If not to the Commonwealth, then perhaps another vault. I
needed
to know. I felt like one of the kids, having found a portal to a hidden world, but I didn't know the magic words to open it. There were nights I dreamt about what might lie beyond that pneumatic-actuated two-inch thick slab of metal. The anticipation was overwhelming.
My mug slid across the table, tea gently sloshing up to the brim. It wasn't the careful hands of Maria who had deposited my order so unceremoniously on the table.
"Expecting company?"
It was the Overseer.
I shook my head. She slid on the bench across the table.
"What a shit-show today is turning out to be." She began. I didn't reply. "And from the looks of it, I'm not the only one going through it."
She placed a hand over mine.
"Hey, you okay?"
"I'll be alright."
"Another migraine coming on?"
I looked at her. She was obviously stressed, but right now her expression was one of concern.
"Yeah." I croaked. I took a sip of the tea. "You can tell?"
"You look pale. More than usual."
The usual
. I knew I was pale. Gaunt. Lanky. As good as someone can look having spent almost three decades buried underground.
"So pale you can see the migraine creeping across my forehead..." I joked. It fell flat.
"Hey" the Overseer's voice dropped low. "I've got medicine in my office. Come by in the evening when you're done with work." Her gaze bored into me. Her blue eyes could be cold and businesslike just as soon as they could be warm and sympathetic. Right now I was in too much pain to figure what they looked like. I nodded. She patted my hand.
"Okay, now do you wanna hear about what i found crawling in the air ducts above my office today?"
"Is this another maintenance request?"
She laughed, this time.
The afternoon hours rolled by. The tea had helped to an extent. The tendrils of pain had pulled back for a bit while I calibrated some construction equipment and later, peered at the source code of the locked door. But by the end of my shift I was no closer to understanding the two hundred-year old programming syntax, and the grey clouds of migraine had rolled across my forehead again. It was no good. I put away the schematics, manuals and my notes for the next day, and headed back down into the vault. The atrium was empty. The Combeses had closed shop and left. Maria and her husband were prepping evening meal service when I passed the diner. I took the stairs up to the Overseer's office. The guard who usually sat outside the door had been dismissed for the day. I rapped four times on the door.
"Come in."
I'd been up to the office plenty of times. If she wasn't out and about, one would usually find the Overseer working away on her terminal at her desk, responding to whatever inventory request or report came her way. The couches to one end of the room would be for official in-person meetings. If it was with heads of staff, she'd usually offer them bottles of ale. She'd nurse a glass of wine herself, two hundred-year old vintage. She'd let me have a sip once. I had turned away from her, pretending to look out the window behind her desk at the shops below. It had taken every ounce of willpower to not let the disgust show in my face. But the Overseer was perceptive. I'd never been offered the wine since.
When I entered, I didn't find her at her desk, nor on the couches. The door to her personal quarters, situated right next to her office, was open. A rhythmic whirring came from within.
"Who is it?" came the Overseer's voice. She sounded out of breath.
"It's me, Neil"
"I'm home. You can come in."
I walked through the doorway to her residence. For being the most lavish residence in the vault, it was furnished rather sparsely. A bed, a dresser, a diwan, a coffee table and a lockbox made up the contents of her office. A couple of paintings hung on the faux wood walls. I walked in on the Overseer running on a treadmill, which I'd never seen at her place before.
"I can wait outside."
