Mary Sue Valkyrie's page

"Took more than four days to clear the 'Sulaco' of its parasitic abominations. Several more days afterwards to lug all of the loot to the dropship and return to the Commonwealth.

"Of note during this cleansing operation: radroaches in here are enormous specimens that decidedly do not agree with the abominations' existence. Not even these 'xenomorphs' could thwart the intrusion of my world's cockroaches into their birthing sacs. Having witnessed no other insectoid permutations of these things the current conclusion is that they are incompatible with arachnids and insects.

"Where to begin?

"The world was set ablaze at roughly a quarter to ten the morning of Saturday 23rd October 2077. Awoke from cryogenic suspension almost to the hour on the morning of Sunday 23rd October 2287.

"Squished 13 mutated cockroaches on the way of the vault. Found the corpse of one Lieutenant Hicks, brother Dwayne, from a colonisation ship. Poor bastard couldn't force the vault door open without a Pip-boy.

"The quantum theoreticians appear to be right: there are other dimensions, other 'copies', of the universe in parallel. This bunch of 'Colonial Marines' had the extraordinary misfortune of crossing the dimensional boundary into 'my' universe. They'd been seeking a new Earth to colonize. What they found was an Earth atomic-bombed to the brink of oblivion.

"Adding insult to injury is that some or many the scientists of their world seem to have a similar lack of ethics, morals or code of conduct that ours did. They brought along passengers upon which they conducted experiments of their own. Vault-Tec would be proud of them.

"Specifically life forms from elsewhere in their universe. Parasitic life forms that implant themselves into whatever creatures they can almost without regard as to the size of their 'hosts'. This adapts the parasites to the environment of their new host world, albeit at the expense of their hosting organisms' lives.

"Cat, dog, mutant hound, molerat, super-mutant, people whether ghoul or human, deathclaw lizards ... all are fodder for these parasitic creatures from another dimensions' outer space. I thank the stars above that they seem to be incompatible with the bugs of our world or I think I'd just find a big nuke, sit on it and detonate it.

"Arrived at the Marines' evacuation point along the rail tracks south of the old GNN TV station on the evening of the 3rd of November. Took their evac vehicle to their mothership's staging point.

"Dawn is breaking on the morning of the 5th of November as I type this. Ran out of explosive .38 ammunition around midday yesterday (about 1,200 rounds). Ran out of grenades (about 100) and .308 rounds (about 700) yesterday evening. There are an awful lot of these things here. Have plenty of 10mm and .45 ammunition, a couple dozen RPGs and launcher plus a couple dozen land mines. If I can lure the majority of them into a killing field it'd help immensely.

"Finished the tour at Somerville Place. With very little in the Commonwealth beckoning my attention I went out into the Glowing Sea. Found all of the landmarks, cleared out a church full of zombies and entered what appeared to be an abandoned shack.

"Turns out that shack was a government listening post. A small number of the Institute's robot people were inside utilizing the surveillance systems. Wasted them, turned off the surveillance devices and claimed technical data retrieved by someone named "C. Kellogg" that provides the schematics to construct post-Bomb power armor.

"Between the two suits I've retrieved and stored and the technical data 'Whitesprings' and 'X-01 III' it is possible to hand-build the armor and systems for two such suits. The 'Hellfire' specifications still elude me at the moment. Modifications and repairs I can do. Building an entirely new set of plates for the 'Hellfire' suit I currently lack.

"During the unpleasantry of exploring the Glowing Sea I came across a vault entrance into what was once Ini-Tech's massive underground complex. Over the past few decades the inhabitants have transformed the complex into a place they call 'Fusion City'. Nominally an entertainment complex of great scope they have 4-stage waste and water processing and purification, a refurbished fusion core power plant and almost all of the vices one can imagine in a safe location. Surviving the trek out there is another matter as it squats in the midst of a moderate-to-high radiation zone.

"They have a pair of training simulators, one for simulating a Raider and ghoul invasion, the other for a super-mutant and deathclaw invasion. Both are highly entertaining, and they let you keep your 'loot' from within the simulation by having it waiting for you upon emergence. The young lady in the clean and skimpy Chem-I-Care nurse's uniform doesn't hurt either.

"The lady running the hotel was worried about her missing son, so I went out and found him in Vault-Tec custody.

"You read that correctly: Vault-Tec. Seems that her son was chasing down bits of information that led him to theorize that Vault-Tec initiated atomic annihilation, not the Soviets, nor the Chinese, nor that idiot who shall not be named who was our last POTUS. Somehow they caught wind of her son's investigation and abducted him by teleportation. I imagine that Fusion City's being a functioning vault means that Vault-Tec's surveillance systems remain functional.

"Teleportation ... if they figured out how to transmit organisms and inert matter without either scrambling them together in transit or worse ... the implications are almost incomprehensible.

"Being Vault-Tec they couldn't be bothered with such mundane purposes as cleaning up the wastelands around them or such nonsense. Instead they're using it to move small bands of their enforcers about to hide their dirty laundry.

"Is this how the Institute's synths and coursers move about in the world? Is the Institute a descendant organization from a vault-shielded research complex beneath the Cambridge campus?

"Dirty Fred runs Club Snuggle. Amused myself for the first few days running various scumbag extermination and swag retrieval errands for him. He pays handsomely enough, about 1,000 caps per errand.

"Afterwards I made the return trip to the bottling plant at Nuka-World and loaded up on Nuka-Cola Quantum. I had 610 bottles of it when I was done. Converted all 439 mini-nukes to nuka-nukes, leaving enough Quantum on hand to convert future mini-nuke acquisitions - typically from super-mutants - in the foreseeable future.

"Latest communities' reports: Abernathy Farm (pop. 14), County Crossing (pop. 11), Coventry (pop. 10), Finch Farm (pop. 4), Graygarden (pop. 8), Oberland Station (pop. 2), Somerville Place (pop. 4), Sunshine Tidings Co-op (pop. 13), the Slog (pop. 15) and the Mechanist's Lair (pop. 7).

"Everyone's getting along as well as I can arrange at this point. It's just a matter of patience. Finished patrolling around Hangman's Alley when I remember that there is this Club Snuggle place down the river to the east a few blocks. After carefully applied violence to yet another couple of scumbag gangs at the Riptide and Back Street Apparel I find myself at the front door to Club Snuggle just before 1 p.m. on the 20th.

"I'm anticipating a death trap. I'm hoping for something ... I don't know, something not involving cannibals, Raiders or murderous robots.

"The big fella with the very ... very ... nice voice is Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood of Steel. Knight Rhys - the wounded one - and Scribe Haylen are the only other survivors of his squad that traveled north from the Capitol wastelands to the Commonwealth, arriving 22 Jan 2287.

"Danse's team - recon squad Gladius - ranged far and wide across the Commonwealth, making it to the shores at Fort Strong before they'd finally suffered too many of their number killed-in-action. Explains why there were so many of the muties' meatbags throughout Fort Strong and its environs.

"His team has been holed up in Cambridge's police station since December. They've only survived this long due to having accumulated supplies for an entire squad instead of three.

"In the interim they've been attempting to improve the station's radio so as to be able to broadcast a signal to 'Scarab' for extraction. A recent attack by super-mutants sporting rocket launchers damaged the existing antennae, so they need to recover a communications system from the ArcJet complex a mile or so away. Danse is desperate enough to (a) leave a wounded Knight and a Scribe alone in the poorly defended station; and (b) ask for my help.

"Based on my brief dialog with Paladin Brandis I offered to help without expectation of reward. What Danse doesn't know is that - right now - my personal arsenal and stockpile of supplies dwarfs theirs by at least 6:1. Probably vastly more than that since I was able to clear out and assemble more than 350 mini-nukes from Fort Strong's lower levels in December.

"Note to self: secure further quantities of Nuka-Cola Quantum for the express purpose of converting existing munitions to Nuka-Nukes. There's an entire river of it, so this should be easy.

"When asked about the Brotherhood of Steel and what its 'mission' - in his vernacular - is, he describes it thusly:"

"Our order seeks to understand the nature of technology. Its power. Its meaning to us as humans. And we fight to secure that power from those who would abuse it. There are very few outside [of the] Brotherhood who appreciate the gravity of the situation we're facing as a species." Paladin Danse

"Phrased in this way I can appreciate their motivation. Later on I listen to the journal holotape Scribe Haylen left sitting out gaining further, more disturbing insight into the Brotherhood of Steel. Most pertinent is this:"

"The Brotherhood's message of hope for the future is idealistic and noble but their methods leave a lot to be desired. The leadership seems especially misguided. Instead of diplomacy, they wield violent confrontation to exert control." Scribe Haylen

"Paladin Danse and I make our way to the ArcJet rocket complex, encountering a small group of scumbags that murder a trader and her pack brahmin before we can close to within weapons range. The scumbags join their victims as carrion food. A couple of bloatflies and a pack of feral dogs are dealt with en route.

"Danse's demeanor reminds me a bit of Nate when we first met. Both are, were, professional soldiers to the core. Danse's crisp professionalism hasn't been blunted by cynicism and battle fatigue. Or he's doing a very good job of putting up a good front.

"En route to ArcJet he mentions that two previous Brotherhood reconnaissance teams had been sent to the Commonwealth during the previous decade. The first team came back laden with swag in the first years of the decade. The second team that arrived in 2284 - Paladin Brandis' squad Artemis - was never heard from again.

"Amusingly I found Danse to be ... talkative, especially for a soldier. I barely got a word in edgewise during this excursion into the complex, even while obliterating robot-people - what he calls synths. Guess I might have to adopt to the local terminology at some point.

"My first trip here was very short as the whirring of turrets and the click-tick of active protectrons was clearly audible in the lobby. This time around the Institute's robotic minions had made short work of the protectrons. Strangely they elected to bypass the turrets instead of obliterating them as they had the protectrons. In the belly of the complex beneath the test rocket fifteen synths came jumping down from the upper reaches. Turns out they had accessed the complex in a two-pronged approach.

"I am amused as this is very much the approach I prefer to an unknown structure or complex of such scope. Entry either via a less-secure rear entrance or, preferably, vertically onto a roof to access the location that way - most often the least secure entrance is on the roof or hidden in some manner.

"Danse presses forward instead of heeding a request to let me scout ahead and find the turrets' control terminal to add ourselves to their authorized persons matrix. He felt that we were caught unprepared in a sloppy sweep."

(inner voice) Sorry bucko, but you were sloppy. Your aimed is mediocre and your desperation to communicate with Scarab clouds your judgement and saps your patience. Whomever Scarab is, although logically this has to be further up his chain of command. (/inner voice)

"Danse paid me a compliment after the firefight beneath the rocket booster. I shrugged it off nonchalantly, but inside I did get a kick out of it. Thanks for insisting on all of those lessons with things that go bang and boom, Nate. They've come in handy in ways you probably wouldn't have imagined.

"After retrieving the communications hardware and returning to the surface via a small elevator Danse hits me up with a proposal. To join the Brotherhood of Steel under his command. Going with "I don't know", big fella. I've yet to consolidate the burgeoning communities of Massachusetts under the old stars-n-stripes. Maybe later.

"Danse returns to the police station while I mop up Cambridge for another couple of days.

"The idea is intriguing ... but 'violent confrontation to exert direct control' greatly concerns me. Danse's take is one thing, the other is unacceptable. I'll have to concentrate significant efforts towards expanding the civilian population, then showering them with the piles of accumulated armor and weaponry that's taking up so much storage space.

"For most of this time things were comparatively uneventful. Patrolled between the settlements I appear to now be 'governor' of, wiping out the local arthropod and humanoid pests as needed.

"An eyebot has been roaming the entirety of the Commonwealth advertising employment opportunities at Cambridge Polymer Labs. Wiped out the scumbags in Kendall Hospital as well as a particularly unfortunate deathclaw lizard, the bugs outside of said hospital and poked around Cambridge some before an emergency distress call was picked up by the Pip-boy.

"I say 'unfortunate' for the lizard as it was at the wrong end of a fairly long hallway. Beer marinated deathclaw steaks are so good, they're the chimichangas of the wasteland!

"Seems that some group calling themselves a 'Brotherhood' are in some trouble a few blocks over from the lab at the police station. It was getting dark as I stepped out of Frat Post 115 on the night of the 14th.

"Maybe they came after Paladin Brandis? He'd said something about being on a reconnaissance mission on behalf of a 'Brotherhood of Steel'. Are these people from the same group?

"It wasn't too late to save three of these people, although one was wounded. One of their number was wearing an unusual set of power armor sans helmet with unfamiliar markings while the other two looked to be technical specialists of some sort. They were about to be swarmed under and eaten alive by zombies when I arrived from what turned out to be one flank of the building.

"I've taken quite the liking the 'wild west' vibe of Dry Rock Gulch, which means I'm equipped with a blackened combat knife, a 'western' revolver chambered in .44, a lever-action 5-shot .45-70 carbine and a few throwing knives I'd used against the scumbags inside of the hospital. I'm not an utter moron - the 'western outfit with chaps' and matching hat are woven with the best multiple-threat-grade ballistic weave I am capable of. Only half of the protection of the outfit I wore into Nuka-World, but it's a Hell of a lot lighter!

"The nice thing about zombie roamer groups like this is that it is possible to massacre them from a modestly high perch. This 'Brotherhood' bunch had erected one such as a wall with a walkway and cover-panels around the front arc of the station. Their mistake was leaving two openings in their barrier. Guessing they must have scrounged this barricade together from the delivery truck out front.

"18 days to mop up the entirety of Nuka-World. 3 weeks in total adding in those gruellingly glorious first three days. The Red Rocket Truck Stop is up to the locals. I'm no more their Overboss than they are my Raiders or slaves.

"Not that any scumbags were left alive in any significant number.

"Of all the oddities in this place a few stand out.

"Vault-Tec just couldn't help themselves. They were conducting experiments on the general public right here in an amusement park, supposedly to improve sales. Anyone that paid money to go through was the involuntary recipient of at least 3 experiments. One of these days I hope I get a lead on their global headquarters. So I can go blow it to Hell.

"As one might expect Nuka-Cola Quantum is infused with radioactive material: strontium-90 in this case. What most will never know is that Nuka-Cola's founder, one J.C. Bradburton, during the last few years of the war was in cahoots with the War Department.

"Seems that old Bradburton wanted to survive the war come Hell or high water as with so many of the rich and famous. He got in on a project dubbed "LEAP-X". Theoretically it would transform the recipients into nigh-immortal cyborgs. Bradburton had already had a private vault constructed on site for himself.

"In exchange for surviving the war and theoretical immortality he tasked his very capable organic chemists to work with the War Department on "Project Cobalt".

"Not much technical data survived to the present day save for a few notable items. A quantum-enhanced hand grenade, and a quantum-enhanced mini-nuke that requires a specialized fat man launcher to deploy.

"Nuka-Cola Quantum was just getting spooled up to speed for production at the park's bottling plant. Bradburton didn't stop with a mere bottling plant. No he incorporated a ride into the bottling plant with its cars riding along on their rails through an actual river of the stuff.

"Nukes, time, mutations and the opportunistic nature of mirelurks moving into and nesting within and around similar industrial structures with a ready, usually radioactive water supply. In this case the results of such inundation resulted in a spectacular new subspecies of the entire mirelurk family. Call them 'nukalurks' for ease of reference.

"These brilliant blue glowing mirelurk variants are more dangerous and much tougher than the typical examples we're used to in the Commonwealth. They are also much tastier if you survive the hunting and egg gathering.

"Lastly with the guidance of a Nuka-Cola fanatic that somehow made the trip all the way from the Capitol wastelands through Tar Walker and Gunner territories to the remote westernmost fringes of the Commonwealth we located and unlocked Bradburton's personal vault. We also saw the results of the LEAP-X project as it was applied to him some 6-8 months before the war's nuclear finale.

"His head - just his head - was suspended in a transparent cold fluid of some sort, kept alive by a bank of computers and life support equipment attached to its own atomic reactor. While Bradburton had no regrets as to his weapons research as an independent for the War Department he so very much wanted his ... existence ... to finally end.

"Staring at the same view for more than two hundred years it is impressive that he wasn't incomprehensibly insane. Despite his fan-girl's objections and insistence that she would keep him company to alleviate his loneliness I did as he bade and cut the power to his noggin. The fan-girl was not particularly happy with me, but she got one of the copies of the original Nuka-Cola formula and I made off with several technical schematics of my own.

"Last oddity of all was a small group calling themselves 'Hubologists'. They believed that they alone possess great secrets to unlocking the potential of the mind. Doing so required five spacesuits with helmets from the park's Nuka-Girl ride which none of the traders in the market wanted anything to do with. I had four spare fusion cores on me, so powering up the flying saucer ride they firmly believed to be a genuine spaceship was easy enough. They had a power converter stashed nearby, then *presto*, their 'space ship' was lit and ready to go. Assuming their positions along the centrifugal positions around the inside they had be stand in the center and power the ride up. Turns out that fully powering this puppy up was more than they could handle. I left their "juiced" remains inside the 'flying saucer' and returned to Fizztop on the night of the 7th.

"The icing on the cake here was an intact suit of T-51b power armor. There aren't many of these anywhere on the Eastern seaboard before accounting for the passage of time and its attendant scavenging. Almost all of them had been deployed with front-line troops the Gobi desert, Alaska or in various shipment points on the west coast bound for China. Let alone those scattered across the Pacific.

"The early morning hours of the 9th of March I'm in said suit of power armor with bundles of swag strapped all over this bad boy and roughly 30,000 bottlecaps richer than when I arrived. I don't expect to ever return.

"Ellie's posthumous information regarding the presence of Raider scumbags infesting the Nuka World amusement park was spot-on. A lot of scumbags. Three different Raider gangs worth of scumbags. This is ordinarily an almost immutable physical law: raider gangs do not play well with each other.

"Seems that the aforementioned scumbags conquered the previous traders that had been running Nuka-World's primary entry zone. They enslaved them, then set up shop. Stitched together into an alliance by a moderately charismatic scumbag by the name of Porter Gage, his chosen leader was Colter, your garden variety Raider boss.

"Colter was Nuka-World's Raider Overboss. He'd gotten comfortable in his little piece of amusement park real estate. Set himself up in the Fizztop Patio and Cafe complex close to the main entrance. Stocked it with all manner of premium grub and abusable substances.

"Then he got complacent, an attitude not particularly beloved by his barely-sane psychopathic minions. Gage kept these three gangs more or less from slaughtering each other out of boredom for the better part of a year.

"About six months into their stay Gage came up with the bright idea of a Gauntlet. Colter loved it as did the Disciples gang who assumed the mantles of maintenance and renovations. Then these buggers sent out 'baiters', lures to draw in unsuspecting people to enter their gauntlet only to die horribly.

"Prior to my arrival only a handful of people made it to the end, power armor wearers from what I could discern. Then I ran the gauntlet sans any power armor. Gage advised me to hose down Colter with a squirt gun since he was clad in a uniquely Raider-esque P.o.S. suit that drew power from the bumper car 'arena' they'd set up the culmination of their gauntlet within. After tiptoeing past innumerable traps, collecting a couple dozen or so landmines and enduring a large pile of nuclear waste drums, I was game to try out the squirt gun.

"Sure enough, it worked. Guessing they didn't know much of anything about properly grounding the frame when accounting for the massive amount of power it could draw from the arena's power grid.

"It had been a long walk, a grueling 'gauntlet' and Colter would NOT shut his pie-hole. The fugly bastard kept calling me a b*tch, griping about how slow I was going.

"Serious cottonmouth from all of the rad-x and radaway, bullet wounds, bruises, contusions and that godawful-tasting bitter medicine I'd been using to keep in decent health combined to make for a particularly foul mood. That and the scumbags' repeated attempts to kill me.

"As soon as the thirst quencher did its thing on Colter's electrified power armor I went medieval on him. Power armor can be nigh-impenetrable to pistol rounds ... if it's built well. His suit wasn't built particularly well and he'd just gotten his jimmies singed. That and I know where to put my bullets for maximum armor penetration. 4 bullets, 4 crippled limbs ... then I limped over and used a rusty chainsaw to lop off his asinine head.

"Gage made his 'sales pitch' that surviving the Gauntlet and wasting Overboss Colter makes me the new Overboss of these scumbags. I played along long enough to catch some shut-eye, get a bit more of a skinny on his Grand Scumbag Empire Plan and meet the gangs' leaders.

"After meeting these five scumbags the course of action was obvious. Gotta waste 'em all. Nisha died first from a .45 full cranial evacuation through her face from the back of her skull. The last scumbag in this park to take his rightful dirtnap: Porter Gage.

" 'Why?! This is a good gig!!' "

" 'You imbecile. I told you I didn't want the job, yet you insisted. Then I saw a few things I really don't like: slaves, senseless slaughterhouses and animal abuse. I really hated putting down the attack dogs, they were just doing what dogs do that are trained that way.

" 'You on the other hand are a Raider-for-Life. As were the rest of these psychopaths. Your ears heard it right, I just killed every single one of your pet scumbags. All 102 of them ... and Gage, you, are number 103.' "

"' Not like this ... ' " *PACKLE*

" 'Jeez Louise Gage, Dixie at least had the understanding to utter 'finally' before I tossed her corpse onto one of their gruesome contraptions. Get off my patio.'

"I severely overestimated my programming capabilities. Jackson's Ada has intelligence programming better than Cruz's, let alone anything I can put together. Now I have a 'spare' artillery assaultron roaming about Spectacle Island. The amount of adhesive it takes to assemble one of the fully hydraulic models is staggering. The 'mayoral version' takes a fourth as much. Granted, it has about a third of the armor and nowhere near the strength, so there is a trade-off.

"Instead I went from settlement to settlement helping them fend off whatever nuisances were bothering them, took care of them by carefully applied violence and welcomed them into the budding nation of Massachusetts.

"Professor Goodfeels' dormant programming was easy enough to wake up. He is the mayor of Sunshine Tidings Co-op.

"Strong was telling anyone who would listen, including that tapioca DJ on Diamond City radio, that he's seeking the milk of human kindness. To fully embrace this supposed philosophy I appointed him to his own mayorship over County Crossing. I hope he doesn't eat anyone or I'll put his big green cannibal butt down like a radscorpion. Personally I give him a 1-in-3 chance to not have to be put out of my misery. Be very, very happy for him to prove me wrong!

"Jake Finch's path to redemption is down the road as mayor of his family farm.

"Lucy Abernathy has pluck and vigor, so she's mayor of her family farm.

"Graygarden was easy enough since I'd fixed up the Weston treatment plant in early November of last year. Supervisor White is the mayor there. She's been running the place in conjunction with supervisors Brown and Green for more than 200 years, who am I to dispute their position?

"Deezer is the mayor of Covenant now. Despite his mayorship and a half-dozen souls living there that meathead DJ keeps referring to the place as abandoned.

"Once Ada and Cruz are done with the Lair I'll start tasking Ada with bringing up the currently vacant settlements to spec.

"In the meanwhile I've been hearing some nasty rumors that back up Ellie's notes in the Nuka Cafe. It seems that there are indeed a vast number of scumbags occupying the Nuka-World amusement park west-southwest of Sunshine Tidings.

"As I finished utilizing my friends' scrapping unit on the outside of their cottage in Cambridge a radio distress alert came up on my Pip-boy's radio. Tuning into the repeating broadcast a trader's caravan is under attack by robots of all things.

"The first thought that came to mind is that more robot-people were out and about randomly massacring people, more of the gen-1 and gen-2 Institute synths. Running to the location just northeast of the Wattz Consumer Electronics store I intended to visit after securing the cottage instead I found something altogether worse.

"The first indication that something different is afoot came by way of the kind of explosions that only come from something atomic-powered brewing up, two of them in rapid succession. Making my way over the hills and through the trees before coming around the parking lot side of the store...

"The trader's camp was an abattoir of butchered corpses and shattered robots spread across the battlefied. One light blue robot was being flanked by two robots. The packs festooning the blue robot tickled my instincts - this must be the defender in this fight. .308 rounds from my Garand battle rifle put down the attacking junkbots in short order.

"A palaver with the blue robot identifies her as Ada, guardian and companion to the now-deceased trader-technicians that until ten minutes ago were a salvaging team cum trader caravan making their way about the Commonwealth.

"Retrieval of a holotape and Ada's testimony identifies the engineer of this morning's slaughter as someone calling themselves by a pre-Bomb comic book villain: the Mechanist.

"Guess I should've heeded the radio broadcast to go to Goodneighbor after finding the Silver Shroud costume and props at the Hubris Comics store a couple of months back.

"Ada indicates that there are a number of squads of mechanical menaces terrorizing folk. There's also a Raider gang with a severe robot fetish known to her as the Rust Devils based on their unique identifying stencil.

"She provides her former master's technical data that permits construction of a robotics workbench. Quite the marvelous contraption that solves my concerns about just how I was going to rebuild the General Atomics factory. Now I can build and program my own robotic minions under personally controlled conditions.

"We build a robotics station on Spectacle Island, then follow the trail to the vicinity of Fort Hagen. Arriving there a 'robo-brain' and its assigned 'bots have massacred a family of farmers and their attack dogs. While we were too late to save them, avenging them was swift and certain.

"Ada is able to quickly determine that a gang of Rust Devil scumbags have set up shop in the nearby satellite array. Wasting the surface group wasn't a big deal.

"Clearing out the massive nest of them in the underground levels beneath the surface array took a bit more effort. The craziest find in there for me was the cherry set of T-60 power armor on a frame with a fully charged fusion core. Their leader, Ivy, was wearing another set of customized 'Tesla' T-60 power armor - the torso and arms specifically.

"Ada and I return to Spectacle Island with a robo-brain by the name of Jezebel and the aforementioned Tesla T-60 power armor. A compact power armor station is built in the emergency bunker and the Tesla suit is stashed therein.

"After building Jezebel a preliminary body to attach her disagreeable psychopathic brainbox to she gives up the requisite access schematic and the location of the Mechanist's Lair. I'd previously accessed the RobCo Sales and Service Center northwest of the airport but found the interior bank vault doors, terminal and wall-mounted devices beyond my skills to access.

"Now I know why. The Mechanist really knows their stuff.

"Discussing the current situation with Jezebel reveals an alarming flaw in the prime directive encoded by the Mechanist. "Help the people of the Commonwealth" is interpreted by Jezebel - and by extension the other robo-brain-led squads that are out there - as most efficiency accomplished by helping them to meet their maker.

"In other words the Mechanist's decision to utilize these robo-brains as squad leaders perverted the original directive to truly help as many people as possible into wholesale slaughter.

"After installing the 'robot key card' device into Ada we are able to access and fight our way through the massive pre-Bomb complex that Uncle Sam had integrated into the bowels of their front operation. Dozens of junkbots and eyebots are put down before even the Mechanist's significant resources and power reserves are depleted, forcing a confrontation.

"To my knowledge a dozen people were slain by the Mechanist's minions before Ada and I breached the lair's access points. We discuss her - yes I wrote her - flawed assumptions and logic progression. We further discuss the detailed history of this location, its methods and the nature of the still-living brains percolating in their tubes.

"Which is to say that Uncle Sam in their ever-increasing desperation to win the war against Communist China felt it perfectly acceptable to use convicted murderers and other scumbags as the brains implanted into this series of robots.

"The Mechanist - Isabel Cruz now - apparently felt that recurring memory wipes would be sufficient in conjunction with her three prime directives to prevent their base natures and almost-certainly permanent madness from floating in their jars without sensory input.

"She was immediately and sincerely appalled at the actual results of her efforts. Cruz wants to just hang up her mantle and quit putting her significant skills sets to use. Ada, showing remarkable restraint, did not reduce her to a set of smoking boots with charred stumps sticking out of them.

"Instead I tasked them to work together to build this complex into a non-Vault underground settlement with Ada in charge and Cruz acting as her XO. No one can bring back the dead. We can make the lives of as many others as possible better.

"Returning to Spectacle Island flush with technical know-how I upgrade Jezebel to a brain-box hovering on a Mr. Handy chassis. She'll very shortly be tasked with running a supply line to the mainland for me whether she likes it or not.

"Next I build the five assaultrons required to crew the howitzers I built last month. Using purely hydraulic frames they are tremendously strong - they can tear through any one of my power armor suits like tissue paper if they are able to engage them hand-to-hand! This makes them ideal for manning artillery in perpetuity.

"While musing over Jezebel's fate - she is after all an unrepentant mass murderer and serial killer even by post-Bomb standards - inspiration struck.

"Among the many microfiche archives are a number of civic plans. Adapting them to the wasteland environment that is the here-and-now I can build a 'manager-bot' to oversee construction and settler recruitment of the dozen uninhabited settlement locations I currently have access to.

"Construction of the howitzer emplacements, an emergency bunker and short-range radar systems on Spectacle Island are complete. During the daylight hours, weather permitting, is when the laborious work was performed. Of the evening hours after supper I listened to and read the accumulation of holotapes and notes I'd accrued over the past eleven weeks. After doing what I could without robots to man the howitzers I return to Chester for some relaxation.

"Upon exiting the Chester condo from the ground level entrance a few days ago the neighboring ship's robot lookout identified me and announced that I was henceforth a member of the Constitutional Army. Since this was quite a bit different from the more typical encounters I've had so far, I went along with the robot to the entry hatch just above the ship's waterline.

"Amusingly the sentry bot Captain of the U.S.S. Constitution, apparently moored largely intact atop the remnants of Weatherby Savings and Loan as a result of ... oh, who knows what could have flung the ship there without destroying her. Regardless of the how, the robot crew had busied themselves over the centuries since with constructing and attaching NX-42 rockets to the ship. Salvagers and other assorted scumbags had boarded the ship and made off with or damaged a few of the ship's modern systems. Twice the scumbags attempted to forcibly board the ship.

"The second attempt after all repairs had been completed was fraught with peril. One of the boarders was a 'dreadnought', a particularly fearsome Raider with very heavy armor and usually several weapons. This one was packing an RPG-7 of his own, very nearly destroying Captain Ironsides with one shot. A dense helmet and the padded lining of my own under armor were the only reason I survived the blast in such close proximity to the captain.

"A group of 4 mercenaries were moving into the area when the allied gang of raiders and scavengers made the mistake of engaging in a two-sided firefight with the Constitution's crew and the new mercs. These mercs were the second-heaviest armed band of freelancers I've encountered so far. Only one of them survived the ensuing carnage. A shame really as their Mr. Gutsy had some pep to him.

"The most heavily-armed band of freelancers I've encountered I ran into back in both Jamaica Plain and the ruins of Quincy. These four people were not only packing serious firepower but they have the skills to make full use of their hardware. One has a fully tricked out gatling laser, the second a five or six-crank laser musket, the third is their medic and the fourth I believe is their sniper.

"After mopping up the surviving scumbags and scouring the block of land mines and loot I poked my head into the Chester Laundry building. The backroom is an irradiated treasure trove of cleaning supplies, including Abraxo, soap and assorted sundries. 7 new bars of soap this day and age is a princely acquisition indeed!

"The Constitution's rockets fired without catastrophic results, landing her atop a new perch in downtown. One of these days I'll have to make the trip over there to see how they're doing.

"Tomorrow I head to our.. my friends' family cottage in Cambridge a few blocks away from the Wattz store. The home is small but it was well-maintained. While Nate and I moved to the newly-built suburb of Sanctuary Hills they elected to update their home. They had some good acquisitions too. A 'junk compactor', an in-home miniature hydroponics system and a small self-contained power generator complemented their home.

"During the nearly forty years prior to Bomb Day families had begun returning to traditions and behaviors not seen in a century. Victory gardens, in-home self-sustaining water and power supplies and recycling systems were expensive and effective. Our builder didn't offer these systems as options, so we'd been talking to our friends about the systems they decided to install and whom they had perform the installations earlier in October.

"They had left Boston on vacation the weekend prior to the 23rd of October. It stands to reason that they left the security systems information in one of their neighbor's custody. Probably that plumber that worked a block over at the Plumber's Secret.

"Cleared out quite a few nests of scumbags along the coast, including a couple of cells of cultists devoted to an entity they call 'Atom'.
"These self-styled 'Children of Atom' lunatics worship being irradiated and welcome the afterlife in a manner they dub 'the great division' - aka, fission. The cell in the lighthouse at Kingsport had a pet 'glowing one' zombie that they'd been feeding passersby to, using its green glow as the place's beacon. A second cell just up the road from the lighthouse was no more welcoming of strangers. Religiously motivated scumbags are the worst sort. I hope that there aren't too many of them.

"The scary part is that adaptation to the environmental radiation has already lead to several mutations of the human genome. The most prevalent are zombies, then ghouls and lastly the giant super-mutant scumbags and their even-larger behemoth-like kin. It is likely that at some point an otherwise normal-appearing human could manifest a fully-radiation-adapted genome that could be inherited. If this genetic mutation is dominant that is the ballgame. Ghouls without the burn victim look in other words.

"Specifically 'gen-3 synths' - what in pre-Bomb terminology would be identified as androids. As compared to the 'gen-1' and 'gen-2' 'synths' that are what I've been calling 'robot people'.

"There are at least two improvement grades upon the baseline androids out there - the first one is the deceased infiltration 'courser' that had been operating out of the condo in the Hub 360 building. My suspicion is that this entity had access to a steady supply of Stealth Boys.

"The second improvement grade are combat-grade coursers. One of these is my current suspect as to what was responsible for the massacre of the Tar Walker Raiders at the Mashkra fishpacking plant.

"This test of these nutjobs that until yesterday had been running their scam in Coventry and the Compound across the lake from Coventry was directly based almost word-for-word on a poorly executed personality test. One that I've come across in the Vault-Tec HQ archives. Its purpose was to assess young adults that came of age when reared in a vault. In theory it would establish the juvenile's aptitudes for operational training during their last few years before their 18th birthday.

"Unfortunately their version of it comprised all of 9 rather bizarre questions that most pre-Bomb people would have a hard time providing the answers the 'doctor' was after. Let alone anyone in this age more than two centuries after the old world was swept away in a haze of mushroom clouds that belched ashen black rain across most of the world.

"These idiots had questions about baseball. Who in the Hell these days has a clue about how any pre-Bomb sports were actually played?! Morons.

"Murderous morons that objected to my objections, drawing on myself and Honest Dan during our attempted negotiations to release Amelia Stockton from their tortures. She'd already been through much from what I saw of her when we started talking. Emaciation from near-starvation and burn damage to her face. Even if Amelia is an android she didn't deserve these jackass' deliberate tortures. To get Amelia and Dan out of their underground compound alive I had to kill all eleven of them as well as every person in Covenant itself. The guards must have let them know of my 'treachery', so the meatbags of Covenant attempted to murder me for my temerity.

"Going to come back at some point with a salvage 'bot to get the mess cleaned up. Deezer (a Mr. Handy) and Daisy (community cat) took the carnage in stride. I locked the doors shut for now. Anything that gets in is going to have to be pretty determined or able to climb or jump over the walls.

"I've accumulated enough stuff to warrant beginning construction at Spectacle Island. Thinking that some time away from people with the ocean as my companion will be just the brain bleach needed to scrub this latest episode of scumbaggery from my brain.

"I don't have the skills to build modern pre-Bomb artillery. On the upside it is possible to hand-build M114A1 155mm howitzers within the infrastructure of the Commonwealth. Saugus is vacant and there are hundreds of tons of ingots and coke there. A bit of reading and I'll make all of the steel and other smelted metals I could possibly need. A week or so should be more than sufficient. Also, much longer than that and it is possible that more scumbags will notice the sudden lack of Forged in that vicinity and come poking around.

"At a distance this is clearly a budding scumbag lair of the Raider variety courtesy of their signature tall triangular tents. They appear to have only moved in recently as the usual Raider decor of decapitated, dismembered, impaled and mutilated corpses is completely absent.

"Crossing the bridge from the remnants of a cottage upon on a hill not far off to the plant's west something seems off.

Raiders are usually a talkative bunch as part of their limited repertoire in alleviating boredom. Crossing over in broad daylight towards the obvious entrance ordinarily would have had their snipers on watch taking pot-shots at me. Not to mention the typical smack-talking and dire threats to my naughty bits.

"Instead the only sounds are those of the ocean lapping at the shore in its incessant indifference to humanity. No bugs, no birds, no radio ... nothing.

"I find dead Raiders all about the outside of the facility, none of them appear to have gotten off a shot. All of them were killed by single shots to their noodles. I explore the entire perimeter, pausing to pick off a half-dozen or so zombies on the shore across the water to the north, before finding myself at the plant's emergency roof hatch.

"These head shots are too accurate for Gunners. Only Institute coursers are so precise.

"I must be cautious.

"Entry via the roof hatch is without incident. Discovering more and more precisely slain Raiders as I go. This bunch appears to have been part of the enormous Tar Walker Raider Clique out of the Philadelphia wastelands.

"It isn't until I descend into the lower levels of the complex that I encounter an entire squad of Institute robot people. A surprisingly large number of this group are mostly or fully armored and wielding the lethal LC-1 laser carbines that seem to have started replacing those clunky old toasters-with-lasers-and-handles things that the Mayoral Shelter crew were almost entirely armed with. Fortunately for me I do not encounter the courser that I believe to have been the sniper that wiped out this entire crew of scumbags.

"A full sweep and clear of the entire plant is completed before I egress once more out via the roof hatch. My head isn't vaporized into atomized chunky salsa, leading me to believe that the courser did its assigned task and moved on to its next assignment. These 'bots were left behind to handle mop up and find whatever it is they were looking for and I now presumably have.

"A few more of 'em were patrolling the exterior of the building, most likely ones that exited while I was downstairs.

"According to the records here by James Wire the genesis of the Raider gangs of the Commonwealth began here in May 2282 when the group he led here settled into this tangled heap of trash barges and derelict fishing boats.

"They arrived in the aftermath of General Becker's death. He was the leader of a local militia group known as 'the Minutemen'.

"The Minutemen, as in, the Minutemen of the American Revolutionary War?

"Hrm.

"Guessing that Colonel Hollis who was killed by Clint's crew of Gunners sometime earlier this year in Quincy was Becker's second-in-command. Piecing it all together my supposition at this time is that the Minutemen fell apart due to indecision after Becker's death. At this time it is unknown if General Becker was assassinated/murdered, eaten by some horrific mutated monster or died of natural causes.

"By the end of the 2282-2283 winter Wire's Raiders had enough of caravan guard work for traders operating out of Bunker Hill only to get stiffed on the agreed-upon payment in food and other supplies. By April Wire had established a protection racket. The kind that is 'pay or get wasted' rather than 'pay and we'll protect you, or exact revenge if we can't'.

"At least Wire had the decency to regret the way his life had turned before he had the extraordinarily bad idea of shooting at me. .308 migraines are messy affairs."

=====================================================
"Stayed home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2287. Dawn of the 26th of December rose and the itch to hunt down a certain scarred-face scumbag renewed. Went out onto the roof-patio into a rad-storm. Headed to the coast north of the Nahant peninsula.

26th-27th December 2287
"That damned rad-storm slowly followed me up the coast all the way from Chester to Kingsport and Salem. As the storm broke over Salem I'd already helped out Reba's crazy one-man militia owner by way of massacring mirelurks and either destroying or collecting quite a few mirelurk eggs. The storm drove me into the basement of the Museum of Witchcraft.

"Ordinarily the deathclaw lizard's aren't particularly frightening because they're so big only severe weather or dense foliage prevents seeing them at considerable range. Inside the mostly-intact museum it was quite a bit scarier. I didn't know what particular specimen of man-rending lizard lurked above. It deliberately ate one of the several Gunners' corpses in a hole not far inside from the basement entrance, letting gruesome chunks and bits fall in a shower of gore onto the floor a few yards ahead of me.

"What the lizard failed to account for was how dangerous my fellow bipedal meat-snacks can be. Or that for a few of us the "fight or flight" instinct results in anger and violence far more often than fear and flight. Pappa deathclaw ate an RPG-7 rocket to the kisser.

"Malden Center is, was, a stop on the orange line that had been occupied by a slightly more intelligent than normal gang of Raider scumbags. Two squads of the Institute's robot people had largely massacred them all by the time I got to the bottom of the station. Had to finish off the surviving robot people and scumbags so as not to get shot in the face during all of the excitement. Three fusion cores, all fully charged, among other sweet loot.

"Medford Memorial Hospital and Med-Tek Research held all kinds of good salvageables, including medicines, some non-perishable foodstuffs and a single dose of something called 'Prevent'. Had to wipe out the big green scumbags and their hounds too. Par for the course.

"Slocum Joe's corporate headquarters didn't have much of it left standing. The one still-intact office was the CEO's corner suite. Three raiders were futilely taking turns pummeling the locked cast iron safe. The big prize they were trying to get was an unapproved recipe for 'Buzz Bites'. Basically an oversized donut hole injected with very hot coffee that would stay nearly boiling hot for hours. The recipe was rejected by the health board due to their overwhelmingly reliable ability to scald the mouths of those who eat them.

"There's a massive sinkhole that a comparatively docile deathclaw lizard has taken up as its lair. While deathclaw beer steaks are very, very tasty dishes I'm not in the habit of casually killing these creatures. Their generally aggressive disposition usually takes care of provoking rockets to the face, but this one is different. Happy to leave this one alone.

"The real kicker here in Malden is Vault 75 beneath Malden Middle School. As is so often the case a gang of Gunner scumbags had forced entry and taken up residence. As is almost always the case this vault too was an experiment.

"Unlike Vault 95's experiments pertaining to surviving forced substance withdrawal or 111's experiments in forced early exiting of staff into the post-Bomb world combined with remote monitoring and control of subjects involuntarily stored in cryogenic stasis, Vault 75's nominal and apparently accomplished purpose was to engineer superior humans.

"Based on the surviving records this experiment was relatively successful despite a frightfully minute genetic pool upon which to draw. They considered only having to murder 74% of the 18 year old 'graduates going to Uptoptown' to be a remarkable achievement.

"Their steadily improving genetic specimens appear to have eventually grown more intelligent and thus more aware of their particular situation over time. Based on the condition of vault 75 there was a spectacularly violent exit as part of these young adults' successful annihilation of their complacent, overconfident self-appointed 'betters'. Evidence suggests that the surviving rebellious young adults evacuated this vault with their younger relatives. Where they went to is unknown at this time.

"My supposition is that the scientific staff of vault 75 had significant supplies of human genetic materials upon which to draw. Over time - how much is unclear - their entirely under-18 population grew and was culled annually based on their esoteric standards.

"Further evidence as recorded on a series of holotapes left behind by a man from the 'Brotherhood of Steel' adds considerable depth to my information on Vault-Tec and 'the Enclave'. In a nutshell our President and his hand-picked minions - as documented by the Boston Bugle as well as this scribe's own records - fled to a supposedly abandoned oil well off of the California coast shortly after our military victory in Anchorage, Alaska. This body of persons formed the leadership of a 'shadow government' styling itself 'the Enclave'.

"Supposition by this scribe is that the Enclave was already enough in the know that they intended to forge a new America from the irradiated ashes of the old. At this time I have no further information on the Enclave's final fate.

"Additional information within the scribe's records indicates that Vault-Tec built roughly 120 vaults with the last one having completed construction in June of 2074. Several of these vaults had not completed construction before nukes flew, how many is a matter of speculation although I would guess as many as one in four.

"Vault-Tec, according to the scribe's information, had constructed a secret vault just for their leadership, chosen companions and families within which to flee. This was not part of Project Safehouse that funded the 120-122 publicly known vaults.

"My current theory is that it would require four hundred thousand properly-sized vaults to safely house the entire pre-Bomb population of the continental U.S. Given the minute number of vaults actually built, the existence of Project Safehouse, the pre-Bomb government's growing desperation, Vault-Tec's own inexplicable conduct within these vaults - including often deliberately shoddy engineering - and so forth ...

"At this point 'total atomic annihilation', quoting the sales rep's pitch that fateful Saturday morning, seems to have been rather deliberately triggered by people yet-to-be determined. There is too much of a pattern of deliberate preparedness, especially by Vault-Tec, accompanying a malignant desire to determine a 'new humanity' from remotely acquired sensory data from the ten dozen vaults.

"It isn't much of a stretch to believe that if Vault-Tec and the Enclave had one 'known' secret hideout that they don't have others. Ones that survive to this day. Perhaps this Institute I keep hearing about is the local inheritor of either group. I suspect Vault-Tec is slightly more likely than the Enclave to have originated this particular group.

"Along the way I've acquired surviving microfiche archives and a compressed computer archive from the Boston Public Library. "Overdue books" are the majority of the salvageable printed texts that have endured the centuries. The Bugle, Vault-Tec's regional HQ, high schools including DB Tech, HalluciGen, Med-Tek Medical ... the list is extensive.

"Some Forged nutters had set up camp around a bonfire in the woods near some mysterious bunker featuring a helipad and extraordinarily aggressive defense turrets. One of their number was wearing a unique suit of power armor, a 'Hellfire' suit. I was able to salvage the plates and frame-attachable systems from his corpse.

"There is a Nuka-Cola-themed cafe across the street from Hubris Comics. Sadly Ellie, the woman that had done all of the hard work I found murdered in the Prost Bar, shot in the back and left to bleed out against the jukebox. Based on her journal Raiders and other scumbags are aware of the location. Cleaned out and noted for overnight stays only.

"A trail of never-delivered Captain Cosmos promotional boxes and a seperate trail left by a 'synth courser' - some sort of android assassin concocted by the local boogeymen - coincided in what was once 'the' building in pre-bomb Boston: Hub 360.

"Hubris Comics was in a cross-promotional production featuring their namesake space opera hero Captain Cosmos, a TV production studio and the U.S. Space Agency. It seems that they were in the final days of production using not one but two combat-grade USSA power armor suits, complete with environmental and live directed energy weapon systems. The one I restored to proper working order is a sonic weapon.

"In the same building as the aforementioned TV studio is the deceased 'courser's' deluxe suite. Luxuriously appointed even by pre-Bomb standards it is under the control of its masters. Detailed notes are taken along with the largest supply of uncontaminated 'stuff' I've yet encountered. This 'Institute' is clearly dangerous with their robot people and androids, albeit they have their own resource limitations. Still, calling kip in an abode that they appear to be able to surveille and access at-will does not seem to be a particularly prudent course of action.

"Across the river in Chester I came across an abandoned multi-level residence with roof access. The poor bastard that had previously claimed it shortly before I thawed out died on the wrong side of the river while he was rummaging through an ice box. The lack of blood splatter or dismemberment makes me believe that he may well have died from radiation accrued from swimming in the local water one time too many.

"This residence suits my needs perfectly. It is in an area with little hostile traffic. The interior space is capacious with self-contained fusion power boxes that, with a little basic wiring, will permit installation of almost anything a girl bent on exterminating scumbags could possibly need. The ground level was a diner with two half-baths and a small storage room. The second level was a large storage space that now stores four power armor suits. I can fit a fifth suit in here along with the eight crafting stations I currently have deployed in here. The upper levels are pre-Bomb, deteriorated from the passage of time and neglect.

"The third level features a living room, small dining room, kitchen, laundry room and bathroom. I renovate the kitchen, installing a working cooking station salvaged from one of the many crates in the Vault-Tec HQ building along with a new combination refrigerator-freezer. I've also stacked up new sinks and toilets from the same source to replace the non-functioning plumbing. A bit of elbow grease with plumbers' snakes should clear out this particular problem. Might have to replace the entire building's pipes, but that's not a particularly big deal at this point. The microfiche archives I've accumulated so far contain innumerable plumbing texts nor is there a union to whine about it.

"The fourth level is a combination of a full bathroom, storage space, guest room and primary bedroom along with access to the roof patio. The large storage room I gleefully deposit the staggering variety of nasty and unique weaponry and munitions I've accumulated so far.

"Note to self: set up weapons lockers for each suit of power armor. Preferred weaponry are Browning M-2 HMGs and RPG-7 launchers plus ammunition and power cores for all of them.

"All of this typing about logistics is dodging the real question I suppose. Rather, the real answers. Are the people of the Commonwealth worth attempting to save when so many of them are scumbags?

"Irony has no bounds. Captain Zao of the Yangtze, a Chinese missile submarine, proved that it might well be worth the seemingly insurmountable effort. He's been stuck in the harbor for more than 200 years living with sincere regret at having followed orders. Sure, it would have been easy enough to simply kill him.

"But to what end? Vengeance for a world long gone, when he wasn't one of the people that gave those orders? He's suffered more during the previous 200+ years than I could hope to inflict upon him as a ghoul. Watched and heard the awful carnage in the aftermath of launching his boat's missiles through the periscope and its microphone. Had to endure the deterioration of his crew into zombies while others died horribly ... so much so that he left their preserved bones littered about his boat.

"He wants to go home to China, if he can, or die trying. Rebuild house by house if he can, or die trying.

"On the upside he had a genuine Chinese stealth suit stashed away, in addition to handing me three homing beacons. Three get-out-of-jail-free cards of a sort ... or obliterate the jail cards. I'd call that a pretty good trade despite the amount of Rad-away I had to guzzle dealing with his submarine. Added bonus is that removes one source of pernicious radiation from the harbor. Heard on the radio this morning that the Yangtze was seen underway leaving the harbor.

"If a Chinese submarine captain can muster the will to return across the globe to rebuild by whatever divine entities are still listening I can try to do the same here at home.

"There hasn't been much to document until today. I've been exploring the post-Bomb Commonwealth of Massachusetts these past 41 days.

"Spectacle Island has become my 'lair' of sorts. Grand designs of robot-crewed howitzers provide daydreams. Lucid nightmares haunt me at nights. What scares me some is that I think I'm growing accustomed to this dog-eat-dog world.

"So far I've not met a soul that wasn't trying to kill me, eat me alive, capture me for 'involuntary pleasures' or worse.

"Until today I've been to wondering if there was any hope for us as a species.

"Today I entered what I presumed would be just another semi-collapsed subway station, the one that has been closed since early February 2077 on Park Street in downtown very near the Commons.

Turns out to be the entrance into a very incomplete Vault 114. I recall that there were still openings for 114 on the news as part of the broadcast prior to Chinese atomics changing my world forever.

"The Vault-Tec terminals in here indicate that it was another experimental vault. This is establishing a pattern after examining similar records in 111 and 95: Vault-Tec's intention is/was to conduct a combination of multi-layered experiments on the ultimate captive subject pools. 114 was ostensibly to see how those from the highest ranks of the pre-Bomb world order adapted to minimal amenities, dense housing and having an Overseer - a Vault Boss - that in all likelihood would have hated their guts with a burning passion.

"The place is crawling with wanna-be mobsters, complete with pin-striped suits or suspenders-n-slacks, various fedoras, Thompson submachine guns and "mob-speak". This crew's boss was a tubby bastard by the name of 'Skinny' Malone. I talked a bit of sweet ear poison to his 'flame' Darla. I wasted his two goons, she bashed Malone's brains out with her aluminum baseball bat and split.

"I did say something about meeting a non-scumbag? Forgive me, dear journal. The non-scumbag that was cooped up courtesy of Malone's orders was an android detective by the surname of Valentine, operating out of 'Diamond City', a 'wasteland city' that rose within the grounds, stands and tunnels of the Green Mile baseball stadium.

"In the meanwhile my explorations continue. For now I'm collecting intact books and 'liberating' entire microfiche archives that survived the preceding twenty-one decades. Few people know this, but microfilm is typically made with silver, platinum or palladium during processing. In combination with 21st century archival processing techniques there is a great deal of knowledge that potentially survived the Bombs and Father Time. There are enough microfilm and microdot readers that I've already come across that salvaging the lot should result in at least a handful of functioning readers.

"Codsworth was almost certainly fried by the bomb's EMP. My husband is very dead. My son has been gone for decades.

"This detective offers the best chance of tracking down that scarred scumbag who murdered Nate and oversaw Shaun's abduction. More likely it'll be his grave or any descendants, assuming some mutated horror didn't eat him years ago. If this Valentine can track that scarred scumbag for me ... well, I guess I can poop on his headstone or something. Once I have the lay of the land here.

The morning of the 23rd of October 2077 replays in my mind 4,383 times. Each replay is the same: waking, nursing Shaun before changing, swaddling and laying him down in his crib. Codsworth clanks and flits about in the kitchen. The morning news murmuring its censored blathering from the idiot box in the living room. Nate and I relish our morning shower together. Discussing Nate's speech at the veteran's hall later tonight in Boston. Morning coffee while contemplating what sort of breakfast concoction Codsworth is assembling.

The Vault-Tec rep comes 'round 4,383 times collecting the same information over and over and over after an unspoken agreement between us gives the go-ahead to sign on with the residents' roster in Vault 111 to keep the annoying git from ringing our doorbell every morning at 9:15.

The newsman confirms the worst fears of humanity since 1945: total atomic annihilation, or our species' one and only attempt to inflict such upon itself, is locally confirmed to have begun at 9:32.

Nate follows me to Vault 111 while carrying Shaun.

9:34 a.m. - The guard who rebuffed the Vault-Tec sales rep's efforts to gain access to the vault lets my family in. Some of our neighbors who did not sign up or could not afford the price of admittance cower against the chain-link fence. They cower in some part courtesy of the two Army National Guardsmen in their T-45 power armor suits with their 5 mm miniguns. At least I think they are T-45 suits, since the T-51's are the front-line production suits, most of which are in Alaska or on duty with the units in the Gobi desert. Nate knows this better than I do. Leave it to the attorney in the family to also be the vehicular enthusiast. Robots now ... let's talk robots.

9:36 a.m. - We take our places atop the entry platform. Our final I love yous.

9:37 a.m. - An almost-blinding flash of light precedes Death's abrupt towering presence over Boston. Seconds later Death's greeting growls through the air, in my chest, grabs my heart. The scythe of Death's shockwave almost claims us before the elevator takes us far enough beneath the surface to not have our lungs sucked out through our mouths for all to see.

"For I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

9:45 a.m. - we've changed into these tacky "Vault suits" and entered our decontamination pods only to find out far too late that this entire set-up is a lie. We're not being decontaminated. We are trapped, lured into suspended animation for some mysterious motive.

An indistinct feminine voice can almost be heard in my mind. They are attempting to access your memories. We shall not let them. We. Always. Win. Or we will die before letting them get what they want.

Things change. A tall balding scarred-face man and at least two assistants enter the part of the Vault we're in. The first is female whom I can both see and hear in her sealed biological laboratory suit. The other is male based on his voice, further to my right, presumably at the terminal. The lights barely function. I cannot act or speak as they open Nate and Shaun's suspended animation chamber, kidnap my son and execute Nate for taking too long to accede to their orders.

"At least we still have the back-up," that scruffy bastard says before leaving with Shaun and minions in tow, before being reclaimed by suspended animation once more.

The dreams change. The scarred stranger's intrusion, Nate's murder and Shaun's abduction integrate themselves.

Over the next 1,752 dreams I come to know that face, those voices, as well as the faces, voices and usually the names of everyone I killed "for God and country" prior to retirement. A few were gratifying, most ... most were part of the job.

No two instances of these subsequent dreams are identical to each other as was the case with the first 4,383 dreams. That's the funny thing about being a lucid dreamer. It makes attempts to manipulate my memories and mind without my consent ... well, impossible. Someone wants to know what I know. On the other hand they have things I want to know. Bit by bit I learn more.

Information passes through doors of knowledge. Doors that always open in both directions. What they are learning is not what they want, thus the door remains intact. What we are learning will likely prove invaluable. Unless they kill us in our sarcophagus first.

During these same 1,752 dreams the mushroom cloud minutely gains something resembling a voice.

My final dream, #1,753 since the Scarred Man, #6,136 in total, the mushroom cloud's voice ...

[indistinctive] blessings are upon you, go forth ... [indistinctive]

Wakey wakey Valkyrie - we're on, training simulation #18 I do believe.

I know that today is the 23rd of October 2287. This world has no idea what is emerging from Vault 111.

She is neither a mewling widower nor a grieving parent.

She is death.

"Procurement of filtered water and food has proceeded well despite the volume of water and food my current activity levels require. By my rough estimates I'm wolfing down about 12 pounds of food and 250 fluid ounces of filtered water a day. Current stocks provide sufficient filtered water for another 58 days.

"Food is another matter, I have about 10 days' worth of packaged foodstuffs available before those are exhausted. Packaged foods that I've come across have provided the bulk of food. After extensive chemical testing there are indigenous critters, grains and fruit-vegetables that can probably be made into an assortment of edible, sustaining and occasionally tasty dishes. Soups and stews are the best overall followed by omelettes and high-protein steaks and kabobs.

"Critters to never eat: cats, mole rats, flies, skeeters and dragonflies. If some numbskull wants to chow down on the latter four they can go right ahead. The bewildering variety of parasites and viruses I've found in them defeat my current ability to detoxify their theoretically edible bits.

"The gigantic scorpions' eggs make especially savory omelettes while scorpion steaks are 'Victory Meals'.

"The mutated crustaceans and their eggs that are in such abundance provide exotic-tasting dishes of several varieties. The enormous 'Queens' are especially delectable having slain three of this enormous crustacean horrors so far. Given the observed processes by which said monstrous crustaceans are known to provide fodder for their hatchlings, eating meals made from their eggs and flesh is a bit of a victory each time.

"'Deathclaws' - the huge lizard-like semi-bipedal monsters - taste similar to pre-Bomb alligator tails. Their tails are the only edible part of their anatomy. I've yet to figure out how to fashion body armor from their hides.

"80 complete gear sets for future settlements: semi-automatic 5.56mm battle rifles with tactical sights, laser pointers and flashlights; 600 hand-loaded rounds in 30-round-capacity magazines for each and a serrated combat knife as hand-to-hand requires. I'd prefer to issue a standardized sidearm and perhaps some form of Molotov cocktail or other grenade, but so far the tactics I use in the field have consumed grenades and mines nearly as fast as they are scrounged and made.

"I've yet to commit the time to sorting out body armor sets. I'd prefer a ballistic underlayer suit similar to a vault suit or flight suit, but for now armoring of the common 'road leathers' plus combat armor and an assortment of helmets will have to suffice.

"Found keys and access data for two potential homes while massacring everything and everyone in the Boston Bugle, Mass Bay Medical, the Mass Fusion building, Vault-Tec's Commonwealth HQ, the Mass State House, the Old Granary Burial Ground, Boston Common - including an enormous super-mutant dubbed 'Swan' - the Boylston Club, Hubris Comics and a set of apartments.

"Where I'm bunking down for the night before clearing the place out is a Nuka-Cola-themed cafe just across the street from Hubris Comics. It's a charming place put together by Ellie, a Nuka-Cola enthusiast. Sadly I found her recently murdered corpse against the jukebox in the Provost Bar not too far away. She didn't get a shot off from her double-barreled shotgun and the only blood in the place was hers. Some nice junk there though.

"The second one is across the river near a sailing ship apparently "stuck" in the side of one or more buildings. Strange location, perhaps the vessel was a pre-Bomb 'living museum' of some sort? Hopefully it isn't crawling with zombies or scumbags.

"Came across some disturbing information these past two days. First, our beloved POTUS who had buttoned up the White House for several months prior to the bombs falling had evacuated himself and much of his staff to some 'Enclave' oil rig off of the west coast somewhere.

Speaking of 'the Enclave' they appear to have survived the bombs in some fashion. One of their scouts was eliminated in the aforementioned apartment building - he'd captured and had tortured-to-death a Gunner, having amputated the scumbag's right leg at mid-thigh. This was stupid of him as he'd cut right through the big arterial trunk and the man bled to death faster than he could cauterize the stump and perhaps keep his information source alive a bit longer. This 'Enclave' is considering more extensive operations here, and are apparently on the trail of a post-bomb suit of power armor dubbed 'the Black Devil'.

"The Bugle's surviving microfilm archives shed a broader picture of civilian life at home. Life had been getting uglier than we were aware of largely thanks to a 'free press' that for generations have increasingly masked the ugly truths under the guise of patriotism. The Bugle, at least, archived their stories and articles in pre-edit and post-edit formats for perpetuity. I'm glad that they did.

"The war effort was more and more all-consuming as the war ground on for more than a decade. Civil rights, medical care, economic stability, ethics, morality and towards the end even basic decency were being methodically dismantled as the 'powers-that-be' grew increasingly desperate to win at all costs. Food was increasingly rationed based on contributions to the war effort unless you happened to inhabit certain gender and societal 'configurations'.

"Pre-Bomb societal norms shattered with each mushroom cloud belching its blackened soot upon the world above ground. I've seen women perform acts just as heinous as men. Skin color is no longer a concern, although among some skin integrity will be if the conversational snippets I've overheard are any indication. Everyone contributes somehow, someway or it is as simple as not getting to eat, or worse. Everyone has to learn how to fight or the bug-monsters WILL eat you, sometimes alive, or implant their babies into you, male or female, ghoul or not. Going about unarmed is a sign of insanity.

"Obesity, even by my pre-Bomb standards, is highly suspicious as that person can be rather reasonably assumed to have eaten enough food that others starved as a consequence. The likelihood of there being sufficient surplus food to result in 'curvy', 'voluptuous' or 'beefcake' bodies is small, albeit possible. Beer bellies or keg bellies either warrant instant suspicion of being involved in nefarious activities or having so much wealth - such as it is in the Commonwealth of the late 23rd century - that one can afford to eat that much.

"I do have a few new 'toys' to upgrade and select from for each foray. A 'solar cannon' that is especially efficacious against the vermin of the Commonwealth. A new 'prototype vault suit' retrieved from Vault-Tec HQ - this will let me ditch the scrap-job assortment of clothing and armor bits for a better distributed armor set. The prototype gauss rifle recovered a month or so back from Gunner Plaza. A prototype laser weapon that is extraordinarily efficient in its depletion of its power cell, well hidden in the bowels of a bank that survived the bombs from that submarine out in the harbor. Pickman's 'gift' - a combat knife that is sharp enough to perform surgery with extraordinary precision. A four-cell MANPAD weapon with anti-aircraft targeting system that should prove equally effective against most targets - this will come in handy should I set out to deliberately confront far-too-numerous-and-ridiculously-large winged vermin.

"In this section of Boston I've only a few more landmark areas to investigate before I either (a) cross the river to the immediate north near the moored museum ship; (b) cross the river due east although with the little information at-hand this seems foolish; (c) work around the neighborhoods of 'Diamond City' and 'Goodneighbor' to mop up the southern and western areas of Boston; or (d) return to the weather control array and work east from there towards the coast. (c) is my current inclination after returning home with all of the junk and weaponry accumulated so far.

"Once there I should be able to consolidate all of the road leather, combat armor pieces and assorted items providing head protection into a more cohesive armory. I've been converting reclaimed assault rifles into a better weapon system based on the prototype weapon I recovered from a shipping container on a barge that was slowly drifting out to sea. Ideally I'll be able to 'issue' standardized body armor and longarms to people in the coming months once I decide on the logistics solutions.

"Amusingly I was able to repair and retrieve an APC from a brutal encounter with a band of Gunners not far from the Atom Cats' garage complex. They had a trio of stealth-capable assaultrons, a hacked sentry bot and several other AFVs, including two partially functional battle tanks. The APC came with an attack chihuahua that I had to smack into line. I stashed the football dog and the APC at Sunshine Tidings. I wonder if the little mutt has managed not to get itself eaten by radroaches?

"Time flies when exploring the rubble of the Commonwealth. Progressed south into the Glowing Sea before turning east to pick off the assortments of scumbags, mutated horrors and zombies across the southern stretch before turning north along the coast with detours.

"Many familiar landmarks have been overrun and transformed in the centuries since the bombs fell. People can rebuild if the horrors and might-makes-right scumbags are killed or driven off.

"Entered Wilson Atomatoys' HQ and cleared out the super-mutant infestation. In the bowels of the place was the most ... "unique" ... suit of power armor I've yet encountered. It was an obsession of a Raider cobbled together from and inspired by his love of the pre-Bomb Giddyup Buttercup toys. For power armor it is remarkably agile and this suit was in pristine condition. I got it back home and upgraded it with explosives shielding, optimized hydraulics and servos then installed a targeting system and a brighter headlamp. I doubt I'll ever use it. Power armor simply isn't my 'thing', although Nate might have gotten a chuckle out of something so ludicrous. "Any port in a storm hon," he would have said.

"Interesting encounters, where to begin? In no particular order I suppose.

"Found a protectron that was refitted into a self-contained brewery. Getting that slow beast home will be a challenge as I'll have to completely clear the southern bank of the river and probably all of Cambridge to get it back in one piece. For now "Buddy" will rest where I found him.

"Unwittingly 'rescued' a serial killer / artist that targets Raiders and other scumbags, making art from their corpses. Gruesome, but in this world Mr. Pickman serves a useful purpose. If he deliberately targets the wrong people it should be easy enough to hunt him down and execute him.

"Found two 'Institute' coursers' remains. The first was in Fairlane Estates targeting two 'synths' gone rogue and become scumbags, one a Raider the other a Gunner. They've got to die anyway given their occupation. The second was inside of a building surrounded by super-mutant corpses. From the standpoint of amateur crime scene 'analysis', he has a decent-sized escort in Hell now. This 'courser' had stashed some interesting schematics before the muties smashed his skull in.

"To my horror it seems that super-mutants throughout the continent - at least somewhere out west, south in the 'Capital Wasteland' and here in the Commonwealth - are not an accident of radiation-induced survival. Rather they are deliberately engineered, produced and released with the commonality being FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus). According to the files I've found these monsters are the result of independent projects of nebulous purpose with no good reason that I can fathom. I take some solace in that the people that came up with FEV did not have access to my own VALKYRIE genetic engineering and cybernetics technologies. This 'Institute' is climbing higher on my kill list.

"It doesn't help them any that this 'Institute's' robot-people, so-called 'generation 1' and 'generation 2' 'synths' appear to be slaughtering people, ghouls or not, without discernible purpose. Their resources are clearly finite as they tend towards varying qualities of issued armor, weaponry and ammunition/fusion cells.

"These robot-people and their wholly sentient 'coursers' and 'generation 3 synths' could be put to much better use if deployed in a more focused manner for a more benevolent purpose. It is relatively fortuitous that whomever is calling the shots in this 'Institute' seems to be either scatterbrained or, more likely, has several power groups or agendas or whatnot making decisions.

"Rescued some dumb ghoul kid from a refrigerator in Neponset Park and escorted him home to his ghoul parents on the south side of Quincy. All of them survived the bombs, all of them became ghouls - not zombies, but ghouls - which strongly evidences that there is something genetic that indicates whether or not irradiated people become ghouls instead of degenerate zombies or - for most - dying an excruciating death as one's cellular structure slowly dissolves into ... soup. Some nimrod Gunner and his cronies wanted to enslave the lot, which went very badly for them. Those scumbags are fish-food now. The ghouls really should locate elsewhere before more scumbags move into Quincy. Not sure where they'd go as they'd probably get murdered by other scumbags before getting anywhere reasonably safe that accepts ghouls.

"Encountered a boy swearing that there was a sea monster a short swim off-shore in the harbor. Swam out to it - it's a submarine. Not an American submarine, but a Chinese submarine. Its stealth systems must have fried as a side effect of the EMPs from its launches on 23 Oct 2077. I have to process this ... and come back with significant radiation countermeasures before entering the vessel. I suspect it will be highly radioactive even with an upgraded hazmat suit, Rad-X and my own innate tolerances for radiation. Maybe the vessel can be salvaged. Maybe it's overrun by high-radiation zombies. Something or someone is operating its periscope, which makes it most likely that either a robot or perhaps one or more ghoul crew remain within.

"Has it really only been 18 days?

"In the process of exiting Fallon's Department Store via the roof hatch after clearing it of super-mutants, a couple of their hounds and an assortment of radroaches some poor pack brahmin was being ... eaten alive by a bunch of zombies. Euthanised the brahmin from the roof, then incinerated the zombies via molotov cocktails and a few pistol rounds.

"Once I returned to ground level I found that the brahmin had a name tag: Spot. Spot's owner and guards are nowhere to be found nearby.

"Upon closer inspection of the zombies I recognize bits of jewelry and faded body art on their charred remains. This pack of zombies were my neighbors before the bombs fell and turned them into flesh-devouring pseudo-immortal horrors. I knew these people by name.

"Just returned from a trip into and out of the Glowing Sea. I found four Raiders in my home base grilling and eating my cats.

My Cats!!

"Too bad for him he was the one working the grill. I doped him up, carried him around to that pump and tied him across the top of it after turning it off. The mole-rats will find him sooner or later. Or the mirelurks, they like fresh meat too, and they have a couple of nests of hatchlings to nurture.

"After clearing out Crazy Uncle Gorski's cabin, including himself, from immortality as part of the ravenous hordes I made my way south and west.

"At the western end of the dam leading towards what was once a self-proclaimed 'robot hippie commune' there is a medium-sized maintenance complex safely tucked into its reinforced concrete bowels.

"Turns out a Raider gang had made the place into their base of operations. The one schlub on look-out failed his task which let me catch the other four gang leaders by surprise via Pop Bomb - an explosive and viscous mixture of Nuka-Cola and an entire box of Sugar Bombs cereal barely held together in the bottle with bailing wire, duct tape and an improvised cork.

"One of them was planning to 'quit the life' with her four cats in a few days. She must have been the crazy one wearing a lightly-armored sequin dress that tried to bash my brains out with a rolling pin. The cats are amicable enough - think I'll set 'em up back home outside with Jangles, Teddy and Mr. Melon.

"The newer gangbangers returned before I was finished looting the place resulting in the 'Wessdamm Gang' suddenly finding themselves before the Pearly Gates.

"From there it was a simple matter of clearing out the radroaches, another couple of gangbangers and a handful of zombies before bunkering down for the night in one of the two cabins with an intact and lockable door and - just as importantly - four walls and a roof that doesn't leak.

"The damaged and hacked Mr. Handy "Professor Feelgood" doesn't do anything much other than putter around this co-op saying "far out" and "groooovy" over and over and over ...

"The regularity of it was a bit soothing, so I slept well once I re-built a proper bed in that particular cabin. Later, maybe, the one with the only fireplace can be properly refurbished into something closer to civilized living.

27 Oct 2287

"Just a bit further south a band of 'Gunners' - self-styled mercenaries only marginally more disciplined than Raiders that have radio communications with "HQ" elsewhere - were bored and thus attempting to alleviate that boredom by shooting at a pair of brahmin from their perch atop the crumbling super-highway that runs west-to-east along the co-op's southern flank.

As a group Gunners have a disturbing proclivity for robot hacking/reprogramming and remarkably consistent access to pre-Bomb technologies, laser weaponry and combat armor being the predominant consistencies among them so far.

"Once they were no longer harassing the pair of brahmin an uppity yao-guai had to be put down en route to a dilapidated church. Therein some medicinally useful foul-smelling fungus grew in fair abundance. Also a metal trap door let down into what turns out to have once been the Commonwealth's western rations depot. This trap door permits rapid infiltration into the rear of the complex. A few shivs and a fistful of tin can grenades wiped out the Raider scum therein. They had one of those 'fat man' tac-nuke catapults in there, along with several cases of pre-packaged food, purified water and a few precious blood packs.

"Returning to the surface via the chapel I reconnoitered the exterior of the depot and its bunkers. Two 5.56mm auto-targeting turrets, two spotlights ... and some bizarro "Raider power armor" in an open cargo container.

"Not wanting to test this thing's armor the hard way the wisest course was to infiltrate around their perimeter, shiv the inattentive slob they had on guard duty, then filch the power core from their contraption. Afterwards the dogs were the bigger annoyance.

"Making my way further northeasterly I came across a Western Cargo Line trailer and popped open the cargo door. The three most noteworthy items: a holotape containing a formal invitation from one Frederick Sinclair to one John-Caleb Bradburton. An invitation to attend the grand opening of the Sierra Madre Casino in order to "begin again". Accompanying the actual engraved invitation with the holotape is a $5 million gold coin.

"A pair of enterprising chemists by the names of Jesse and Walter had set up a drug lab in a trailer at the Wicked Shipping Fleet Lockup just southwest of the Abernathy's farm. Specifically they've been brewing a variant of Jet infused with Nuka Quantum. Two now-cleaned hazmat suits later and I have an ... interesting chem recipe.

"Based on their notes they were relying on stealth boys to enter and exit their trailer cum drug lab, relying on the few zombies scattered about the lockup yard to provide a form of security.

"The new shelter on the banks of the Misty Lake is wonderful. Someone named Carla ratted out its previous 'ghoul' tenant to a group called the 'Institute' who sent humanoid robots to waste him. The ghoul went down fighting based on the three non-functioning robots at point-blank range to his corpse.

"This place will be put to good use! It has power, running non-irradiated water, including waste disposal and sanitation facilities. A full suite of crafting stations, including a power armor station that I am rather unlikely to use other than to fix up any surviving suits I manage to get back there more-or-less intact.

"I removed the cryolator casing from Vault 111 and put it to good use here as a proper refrigerator. The cryolator itself is far too cumbersome and unwieldy to be of much use away from my new home.

"Outside is a 'wasteland paradise' comprised of a waterfall into a safe-enough pool with seating for six. Jangles the Moon Monkey floats in his place of honor whilst Teddy perpetually showers with his soap and toothbrush beneath the waterfall. There are a few chairs with the chaise occupied by Mr. Melon with his blue visor and bottlecap eyes. An oversized Giddyup Buttercup recuperates in its power armor station. Off to the side of the eastern gate is Captain Hugs, Teddy's kin with his little green-and-purple alien buddy on their swing.

"It has been more than 21 decades since the bombs fell. How likely is it that any suits of power armor survived this long? I do not know for certain, but any that are in service after so long are unlikely to be of much use against anything better than a catalog-issue pistol. Maybe a few, stashed away two centuries ago behind sealed vaults and terminals to which no one living will remember the password for.

"I did find an experimental weather control station north-northwest of the Robotics Disposal Ground. It will make an adequate bolt-hole when needed. For now I've secured the facility against casual intrusion by way of landmines inside the doors and throughout the facility outside of the main control room.

"It seems that total atomic annihilation may, I emphasize may, not have been defensive retaliation by the United States. According to the surviving data here there was more than a little bit of success in using satellites to influence weather at targeted regions across the globe, including a "test" in Communist China.

"I have to admit to looking forward to collecting further tidbits of previously TSCI (or higher) data despite the horrors of this new America I woke up in.

"With plenty of time to ponder while moving around on foot - as no vehicles have survived the combined passage of time and scavenging by survivors so far - I suspect that more than 130 years of on-again off-again "cold" and "hot" wars between the United States and the so-called 'Red Menace' was an ideological mistake that should have died off after its first fifty years.

"The remnants of humanity have been sifting through the ashen ruins resulting from ever-increasing desperation before launch codes were issued and the bombs flew thick and fast.

"My first Christmas without Nate and Shaun. After wallowing in self-pity, booze and junk food for most of Christmas Eve I wake up at 0600 Christmas morning. Old Saint Nick didn't leave anything under the lit Christmas tree I set up. If he had that would have been a surprise!

"I decide to go Christmas shopping at the Federal Ration Stockpile and the Mayoral Shelter. Not much of a surprise that another Raider gang moved into the stockpile - there's a LOT of food and non-irradiated water in there! - but the robot people crawling all over the innards of the mayor's massive shelter complex was.

"Naturally the stocking stuffer was another deathclaw. My best guess is that the beasts have a sense of smell appropriate to their size. This one must have noticed that the previous occupant had moved on (read: become luggage and meat in my larder) so it set up shop. I have more glue now, which is always in short supply.

"More leads are pointing me towards Diamond City - what the post-Bomb survivors call Boston's 'Big Green Mile', the pre-War baseball stadium, as well as a fortified neighborhood known as 'Goodneighbor'. It is too soon to consider doing so for another six to twelve weeks. Probably another several months at a guess.

"This 'Institute' might well present the greatest threat to the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and myself. In order to defend first myself, then as many folk as possible, against their infiltration synths I need to establish a series of bases from which to operate.

"The advantage to having - by current standards - 'phenomenal' knowledge of computers and by extension robotics is that it is possible to quickly subdue hostile robots and turn them to one's service. Decryption of the command tapes at the Robotics Disposal Ground combined with the copious technical data from the hidden repository at Hester Consumer Electronics makes capture, rather than destruction, a viable modus operandi.

"Over these past couple of months a surprising number of robots in varying degrees of condition have thus become 'available' for my own ends. 9 Assaultron-class, 15 Mr. Handy-class, 10 Gutsy-class, 30 Protectron-class and 5 Sentry-class robots have joined 'Professor Goodfeels' at Sunshine Tidings Co-op. Who needs turrets when one has five Sentry bots guarding the perimeter?

"The majority of the bots will be tasked with the primary purpose of constant salvaging operations. This will result in a snowball effect as the junk and scraps that they accumulate will in turn facilitate increasingly rapid expansion of the operational bases. I am curious as to whether or not I can replicate the pre-War greenhouse project found at Greygarden. I saw it on the news shortly before the bombs fell. It seems to remain in operation to this day, which is inspiring.

"As a side note I've been accumulating, cleaning and storing the bits of combat armor the Gunners and Raiders were wearing. I'll need to fabricate quite a few pieces of limb armor, but upon completion there will be enough full sets of combat armor to equip 110 people with proper combat armor. For some reason left leg protection is especially prone to getting destroyed as I'll need to make almost twice as many sets of that as I do the arms and right legs. Perhaps people step on land mines with their left foot more often than their right foot?

"I do believe that it will also be possible to produce an equally sufficient number of fighting knives and combat rifles chambered in .308. The goal is to standardize issued body armor and weaponry for everyone when the time comes next year.

"Head protection remains the most difficult acquisition. With only 3 combat armor helmets and a half-dozen each cleaned army helmets and metal helmets the bulk of the head protection currently available is comprised of hard hats and mining helmets. The latter largely came from the Raiders that were based out of Dunwich Borers.

"At present the Co-op, Hangman's Alley, Jamaica Plain, the Zimonja listening post, the construction site at Murkwater, Croups' Manor (a bunch of pre-War upper crust socialites that became zombies and subseqently became fertilizer), a coastal cottage with a mirelurk nest, the lighthouse at Kingsport and Spectacle Island have been 'claimed'. Reconnaissance indicates that the ruins of the Starshine Drive-In and a boathouse at Taffington should be easy enough to similarly claim.

"Also acquired are the keys to enter into a total of 8 'homes' that are effectively safe-houses as there is little ability to properly defend them against intrusion, including the previous entry's 'Noir Condo' in the Hub 360 building.

"The multi-level 'condo' in Chester features roof access. It might be possible to re-secure the ground level door against casual intrusion. If so, now that the U.S.S. Constitution has relocated atop one of the downtown skyscrapers, then this singular home might be worth the effort to overhaul for my own ends.

"The combination of re-purposed robots and 'claimed settlements' should provide a series of operations bases stretching across most of the Commonwealth, supplemented by the eight safe-houses. Once the desired arsenals have been stockpiled and robotic minions have been constructed, programmed and deployed to provide both a steady supply of junk / scrap and interconnected logistics my attentions can return towards mopping up the less-populated areas around downtown Boston.

"The strange radio signal I picked up upon emerging from Vault 111 eventually led me to a secure terminal in the Cambridge Law School campus. From there I followed the information to an abandoned cul-de-sac of homes. In one of these homes I found a dead 'robot person' clad in human flesh. This 'synth', for 'synth' seems appropriate to these entities, worked for the Institute as an undercover agent posing as a private detective.

"This synth, designated B-263, detailed its recent activities in the Commonwealth. Its most recent assignment led B-263's superiors to re-key their agent's home and sweep it for eavesdropping bugs.

"In the interim B-263 was expected to 'recover' or terminate, whichever it could accomplish, two 'combat specialist synths' - designated R3-11 ("Burner", a Raider affiliated with the Back Street Apparel gang) and PR-15 ("Captain Janssen", a Gunner out of Hub City Auto Wreckers). It failed to do so but its objective of terminating a Raider and a Gunner suited me just fine. Perhaps B-263's 'home' could provide further information on this Institute.

"Previously the 'robot people' used by the Institute that I've encountered were humanoid robots of human-size using human equipment.

"B-263, R3-11 and PR-15 represent my earlier theoreticals as to the potential applications for long-term infiltration of a targeted Communist community with the goal to eliminate, extract or otherwise wreak havoc among targeted enemy communications.

"The implications of these three 'synths' (synthetic people complete with distinct personalities - some would say souls) and their activities within the Commonwealth are ... severe.

"First, that the Institute uses infiltration agents like B-263 as part of this nebulous 'SRB' - 'Synth Reclamation Bureau' perhaps? - for any number of goals. From the small pieces of information I have their purpose is very similar to what I spent a career, my previous life, performing: infiltration, assassination, information warfare, electronic warfare, random acts of terror among the enemy ...

"Second it is clear from B-263's logs that there is yet another 'power group' present in the Commonwealth that the Institute very much dislikes: the 'Underground'. B-263 was tasked with locating an Underground agent dubbed "Brimstone", torturing her for all of the desired information it could extract from her, then disposing of her corpse.

"Third and most importantly is that the Institute has the capability to infiltrate and wreak havoc amongst those they 'dislike'. Which could mean anyone, everyone else, in the Commonwealth. Conducting guerilla warfare and psyops is well within these synths' capabilities. Depending on if there are better, more capable models of these things ... the Commonwealth's struggling survivors are in dire straits should the Institute decide that they need to go.

"This home is gorgeous ... my heart nearly broke after seeing such a pristine lair to claim for my own. Just upstairs from Hubris Studio, set for the Captain Cosmos project. It would have been perfect to investigate and clear out said studio and stash it right up a flight of stairs.

"I dare not do so. The Institute clearly has the ability to reclaim this location at a whim. My presumption is that they probably have audio-visual surveillance in place.

"I'll enjoy the facilities on a recreational basis, steal everything that isn't nailed down and consider other housing options instead. I have this new key now, but who knows how long it will remain truly safe for my personal use.

"Until then I'll strip it as bare as I can, booby trap it to a fare-thee-well should this 'Institute' send robots or their synth agents and visit it erratically for long, warm showers and laundry machines. It is a nightmare compared to pre-Bomb to keep clean. Just keeping the important personal bits sanitized and the stench down from burning 8 to 16 thousand calories a day takes Herculean effort out there.

"Threat Assessment: the Children of Atom

"A religious cult based around the belief that fission is a divine act, that irradiated creatures are divine manifestations and of course complete zealotry in the forcible conversion or execution of non-believers. Up to and including feeding prisoners to irradiated pet zombies such as the zombie that previously served as the light source in the Kingsport Lighthouse.

"In other words these 'Children of Atom' are a special flavor of lunatic even by post-atomic annihilation standards. They are added to my kill on sight list alongside Gunners, Raiders, rapists, scammers, slavers and super mutants.

===================================================

"The 'robot people' so far encountered have initiated all combat encounters requiring their destruction and subsequent salvage. Their weapons are mediocre by comparison to standard military issue laser weapons while their body armor is quite good, better than combat armor of similar classification. Sadly their design aesthetics are far too distinctive for my purposes across the board.

"On the other hand they are worth quite a bit in barter as I found in the process of encounters with a trader from Vault 81 and 'Longneck' Lukowski.

"This last person exemplifies pre-War amorality as I found out the hard way his canned meats included ground up mole rat and radioactive zombie meat along with whatever else he could get his hands on. He attempted to lock me in the basement of the cannery with a bunch of zombies and radroaches. He probably would have ground me up into more canned meat if he had his druthers. A .308 aspirin took care of his headache."

====================================================

"Nate and I would probably have become as 'crazy' as Crazy Uncle Wayne if we had seen what I've seen going on in the schools of the Commonwealth. Pink paste as the only dietary option in exchange for school funding? A high school principal distributing mentats to the student body to line his pockets by way of elevating the student body's standardized test scores? Don't get me started on Vaults 75, 85 and 95.

"Vault 81 appears to have been open to the Commonwealth for some time. I've yet to go past its entryway or meet any of its inhabitants. Eavesdropping on Gunner and Raider conversations picks up the few details I do know. That they're open, that their citizens sometimes venture out into the Commonwealth, and that they do not appear to be raving nutjobs.

"Vault 88's entrance in the bowels of the Quincy Quarry has been discovered, along with two secured-from-inside exterior entry points. It will be wise to remember such entry points much like the chained-up side entrance in Hangman's Alley. Which is to say that they are best left as-is.

"I've stashed power armor frames at Sunshine Tidings and Hangman's Alley. Accidentally 'claimed' Spectacle Island when I switched on a 'sonic array' of some sort that resulted in the acquisition of vast quantities of mirelurk meat, softshell mirelurk meat, queen mirelurk meat and some other goodies. I left the generator and beacon running before swimming back across the water."

=========================================================

"Throughout my explorations there are little surviving bits, snapshots I suppose, telling tiny stories of what people were doing the day the bombs dropped or in the days, weeks or months afterwards. Telling the horrors of what most of the Vaults were truly tasked with doing on small captive populations. To what esoteric end I cannot fathom as - so far - there is little rhyme or reason as to why the vault experiments were conducted.

"Based on the bits of information that has survived these experiments often include their own 'employees'. In my opinion I think virtually all of the 'experimental vaults' indirectly includes their staff as part of that vault's experimental purpose.

"In some cases, such as my own Vault 111, it has become my belief that the inclusion of the entirety of the staff was absolutely part of the experiment. One hiding behind the overt purpose of involuntary cryogenic storage.

"What is worse in many ways has been discovering just how cruel things were before the War's End. They were not 'Raiders torturing you to death before impaling your decapitated corpse' cruel.

Rather it has been finding just how many of the people in charge valued their fellows' lives as holding little or no value. Unionising had become legally classified as sedition. Workplace protections were deteriorating in a combination of profits, resources depletion, population growth and of course World War III. By pre-Bomb apparent standards life had been deteriorating since the 2010's, although my memory of history is less than complete that far back.

"Speaking of World War III two encounters and brief assistance was provided to a new group. The first was with a Paladin Brandis, survivor and leader of a reconnaissance team that arrived in the Commonwealth about three years ago. He thinks of himself as formerly Brotherhood, unable to communicate with this group.

"The second was with the remnants of a more recent Brotherhood reconnaissance team lead by one Paladin Danse, based out of a police station in Cambridge. They've 'only' been in the Commonwealth since the beginning of the year. How the Scribe had learned of the existence of the transmitter inside of Arcjet I never uncovered, although this led to yet another violent encounter with more 'robot people'.

"Danse is an intense man driven by ideological blindness. His Scribe - a Brotherhood term for 'technician' it seems - is more cynical in her description of the Brotherhood's leadership, their methods and motives. I agree with her take on the subject.

"Danse describes what I call 'robot people' as 'synths', created by an organization dubbed 'the Institute'. These 'synths' are basically what I call them but to Danse and presumably by extension the leadership and most of the rank and file of this Brotherhood of Steel they are 'technological terrors' that, along with the Institute itself, must be extirpated.

"I could somewhat understand this if the robot people were just another type of brigand, murdering and pillaging when exercising their free will. They're robots without free will, not people, however good their programming, that can be repurposed to human benefit. What I've seen them tasked to do has not gone well for them - but it often doesn't go well for most other people of the Commonwealth be they farmer, Gunner, Raider or settler.

"Danse further expresses the Brotherhood's attitude towards ghouls - irradiated people that are for all practical purposes a second species of human as far as I can determine - and 'super mutants' (more on these large green men later) is identical: given the Brotherhood's druthers they would simply exterminate all ghouls, big green men and robot people.

"A quiet side conversation with his Scribe confirms my suspicions. The Knight is a meathead, a less capable, less intelligent and much less charismatic Danse for all practical purposes.

"Danse's offer to join his beloved Brotherhood of Steel is answered with 'I don't know'. Infiltration being my previous, previous life I dare not eliminate the prospect of gathering intelligence from within just yet.

"As far as I'm concerned the big green men locally identified as 'super mutants' are a different kind of brigand, cruel and murderous. I've liberated two women from their custody so far with both of them commenting that 'Trinity Tower' was their eventual destination. To what exact end neither of them knew ... but could guess.

"Just to listen to the big green men one wouldn't think too terribly badly of them in this environment. They have their own breed of dogs that they love. Their culture is might makes right without the cruelty one sometimes expects of it ... until you use your eyes.

"The big green men make people into bags of meat within which they store other things, including meat, bits of creatures and any shinies that capture their attention. The process required to make a single one of these bags requires two or three adult humans to make - and their lairs are often liberally festooned with these disgusting sacks. Sacks large enough and sturdy enough to double as a sea chest or very large storage trunk.

"On a side note some 'entrepreneurial' sort attempted to sell me on a credit card. Seriously, in a barter-and-bottle-cap economy he wanted to con people out of their hard-earned bottle caps for a bit of plastic that assuredly worked absolutely nowhere. I gave him his 110 caps, I got my card, then his brains exploded through the front of his head.

"Brigand Reassessment: 'Gunners'

"There is more to them than initially assessed. I wiped out the local primary leadership in a heavily fortified GNN studio locally dubbed 'Gunner Plaza'. Primary technique was to infiltrate up the lightly guarded southwestern stairwell which completely lacked autonomous turrets and spotlights with minimal foot patrols along the roof perimeter.

"Gunners have radio communications between what they call GHQ and their assorted outposts throughout the Commonwealth. They have made substantial acquisitions of pre-Bomb armor, weaponry and other material by dedicated efforts to discover, uncover then sustain long-duration salvage operations at Army and Vault posts they believe to have worth. The fruits of these labors yield consistently wearing Army fatigues of various sorts, a mixture of Army and flight helmets and varying amounts of Army-issue combat armor of different grades and modifications. Laser weapons are almost ubiquitous. Additionally they use 10mm sidearms, longarms in a mixture of rifle calibers with occasional heavy weapons systems. GHQ's arsenal included an anti-aircraft configured man-portable missile launcher and two (2) "fat man" tactical nuclear shoulder catapults. The second-in-command fielded a prototype gauss rifle - fortunately for me, she wasn't a very good shot.

"Confirmed Vaults 75 and 95 as Gunner infested and expunged. Recurring evidence of Gunner 'tags' at several other smaller Army installations. Gunners tattoo their blood type information on their person in addition to their 'Gunner Identification'.

"Most importantly is their demonstrations of significant technical knowledge and execution. So far I have encountered two different commanders with access to field refurbished suits of T-51 series power armor. Most chillingly is their growing acumen with robotics systems, specifically the deadly assaultron series. Once they set up a sentry bot specifically to function as a form of early warning system just outside of easy firing range of the entrance into Vault 95.

"A few abandoned settlements have been claimed, although I've only set up rudimentary fabrication and repair facilities at the quiescent 'hippie commune' northeast of the tram complex leading to the Nuka-World amusement park.

"Creatures of note, Wile E. Coyote style:

1. 'Terribulus Mosquitoeus': the locals call them Bloodbugs. Mosquitoes so large and strong they can carry aloft livestock such as brahmin. Their proboscis is effectively a hollow harpoon, through which they are able to compress and spray their prey with blood stored in their blood sacs. Amputation of the blood sac will render this tactic ineffective. Primarily found in or close to the vicinity of bodies of irradiated water, often tepid, they have a fairly significant predation range. Recommended method of dispatching is a targeting missile launcher or other long-range explosive.

2. 'Fuglious Flyicous': the locals call them Bloatflies. Typically dog-sized flies, their primary form of attack is to expel larvae that are capable of killing unprotected targets. Typically found in small packs from 3 to 6 in number. They are distressingly nimble in flight when on the offensive, so it is best to kill them en masse from as far away as possible with incendiaries.

3. The mutated dragonflies that range in size from a large dog to as large as a destrier horse feature a venomous sting and significant aerial agility. Generally physically tougher and quite dangerous in melee combat, termination is recommended from as far a range as one can efficiently shoot them.

4. 'Two-Headicous Bovinius': mutated bovines with two heads that the locals call 'brahmin'. One of three domesticated creatures asides from cats and dogs I have encountered to date.

5. 'Self-Propelled Field Rations': mutated deer with two heads and a pair of vestigial extra forelimbs sprouting from the front of their torsos. Locally dubbed 'Radstags', although I have encountered male (antlered) stags, does and yearlings. Occasionally one of the stags contracts rabies, or has successfully adapted to a more radioactive-than-normal environment. Albino specimens have been observed. Generally docile it is recommended to avoid slaying any unless one is in dire need of food.

6. 'Uglius Puppyous': feral canines with little or no fur, these beasts are generally ravenous. Irradiated specimens have yet to be encountered, although albino specimens are often pack leaders. These are formidable should you permit one to close into melee with you.

7. 'Yao Guia': mutated bears, although so far I've only encountered what pre-War would have been ones about the size of black bears.

8. 'Jumping Kneebiters': locally, "Molerats". Disgusting creatures, they nonetheless are formidable burrowers, exceeded in this capacity only by 'radscorpions'. Molerats seem to be unable to penetrate solid rock. Tends to hunt in packs and make large mounded nests similar to beavers.

9. 'Gorram Bushwhackers': locally, "Radscorpions". These enormous mutated scorpions generally are the size of an atomic car. Phenomenally capable burrowers, I believe that they are capable of burrowing through anything short of the firmer metals.

10. The local term for these gigantic mutated lizard-chimeric creatures is "Deathclaw". They can rend most humanoids into chunky salsa in seconds, sometimes by throwing them in the air before tearing one or more limbs off, others by eating their heads. They tend to predominantly inhabit the vicinity of the Glowing Sea although younger specimens have been encountered as far north as the hippie co-op north of the rations stockpile. Have observed fights between deathclaws. Recommended method of termination is explosive dismemberment of motive appendages followed by administration of a full cranial evacuation.

11. 'Zombies', locally identified as 'feral ghouls'. Quiescent until prey is perceived, typically. Occasional packs of zombies have been observed near 'mirelurk' hatcheries patiently waiting for either hatchlings or adults to emerge.

12. Local 'Mirelurks' appear to be several different species that, if present in close enough proximity, support each other.

The common adult specimens are heavily carapaced amphibians with two pincer appendages used to bludgeon and dismember their prey. They are typically encountered in close proximity to mirelurk egg nests. They have been observed twice so far as setting up large nesting grounds inside warhouse- or boathouse structures.

A second seemingly unrelated creature - aka 'Mirelurk Hunters' - nonetheless exist in symbiosis of some from with their crab-like brethren. Faster, less armored.

A third 'Mirelurk' adult, also not easily considered related presuming that the common nesting mirelurks are the 'norm' for the species, is known as 'Mirelurk Kings'. Unique among wasteland creatures encountered thusfar is that these creatures have a sonic attack that can paralyze or stun their prey. Largest grouping encountered so far is 3.

Lastly is the infamous 'Mirelurk Queen'. An enormous creature capable of vomiting significant streams of molecular acid able to eat through most power armor plates in fairly short order.

"We are definitely not in Massachusetts anymore, Toto," I whisper under my breath as a pair of enormous quad-winged insects with wickedly-tipped stinging tails attack a veritable green giant and his pet green attack hound in the trees ahead of me. Wait, watch and learn, for the right moment to strike is when the enemy does not know what is about to evacuate their cranium.

"The oversized stinging dragonfly creatures are nimble, one going down with the green hound as they savage each other to death. The green giant wields an enormous piece of lumber to which a long handle has been duct-taped. The dragonfly overestimates its abilities and only scores a glancing blow along the side of the giant's head before it is pulverized into the ground. Seeing his hound slain the giant finishes off both dragonflies before turning its attention to what all of them wanted to eat: a small herd of two-headed herbivores, perhaps originally deer before the bombs fell.

"As the giant takes off running after dinner it ceases to care as I shoot it in the back of the head. I'd like to keep herbivores around my general vicinity alive, at least for a while. I'd rather not eat these disgusting giant bloatflies or dragonflies or anything else in this new world that was once a normal flying insect. These days a flyswatter involves a caliber instead of a synthetic rubber mesh at the business end of coated aluminum wire.

"A few more precious rounds dispatches several of the aforementioned disgusting bloatflies using the Park Ranger's dilapidated cabin as their lair. Inside the skeletal remains of a young woman in the tattered rags of what was once a very pretty green dress rests atop what once could only have been charitably described as a mattress on a good day.

"Next to her deathbed a yellow suitcase faded from the passage of time remains reasonably intact due to the unbreached roof of the cabin. Some sort of luminescent fungus grows on the wall above an overturned table. Inside her suitcase is a holotape, a spare dress that only somewhat smells its age and an intact package of bubblegum.

"Stashing the gum for later potential use as an adhesive I play the girl's holotape, dated 22 October 2077. The day before the bombs fell. To most listeners they'll hear the words of a teenage runaway banished from home for getting pregnant with a fella she hasn't even told yet.

"What few would recognize is the telltale hint on the holotape's casing that made me giggle inadvertently.

"Senator McCarthy V was up to his great-great-grandfather's nonsense all over again, stirring up anti-Communist paranoia against the entertainment and performing artists circles in a series of Senate committee hearings. In return the counter-protests from the younger adults and teenagers generally expressed itself in two ways.

"Coming up with their own currency via Nuka-Cola bottle caps was their first method, one that proved so effective that it, rather than dollars, survived 'total atomic annihilation' more than two centuries later.

"Almost as importantly her holotape contained over 140 studio-grade recordings of dozens of musicians across several new, and by pre-War standards lascivious genres. These groups of musicians and other performing artists grew to call themselves the Eighties to denote the decade they, perhaps naively, expected to break out into the mainstream conscious of Americans and the European Commonwealth.

"I listen to them all there in that cabin, enraptured by the daring of those determined to buck the system which for so long remained locked in an ideological global conflict that raged off and on for more than 120 years.

"One of the little details that pre-War authors often failed to mention in their fantastical post-apocalyptic soap operas and 'science fantasy' pulps is that a post-atomic age, by pre-atomic standards, is generally quiet.

We were accustomed to the constant influx of noise from all manner of sources. The distant belching and farting of factories. The bass thrum of the atomic plants in vehicles and buildings. The deep throaty buzz of the turboprop superliners as they pass overhead. The hissing-hiccuping of the Handy and Nanny robots as they flit about their duties. Stereos and televisions emitting both light and a constant susurrus of chattering babble. All of these became normal, what some used to call noise pollution.

"Here, now, that's all gone. Electrical lights are an indicator of food, shelter and probably danger. Fire and oil lights perhaps less so depending upon their source. The telltale sickening orange-green glow of still-dangerous toxic spaces can be difficult to see in sunlight, yet it is almost impossible to miss in the dark of night.

"Now, hopefully for longer than it takes me to scrounge up spare holotapes to copy these precious musical performances, a relief from that silence, even if it could be dangerous to drown it out with relatively raucous noise.

"Come and get it. I'm not giving up my music!

"A few days later I finally make my way south to Nate's 'crazy' Uncle Wayne's shack. Uncle Wayne would always dutifully attend the family gatherings at holidays. He was an excellent line order cook and soda jerk back in the day, and no one could grill up weenies and burgers better than he could. Yet he insisted on living, as he called it, "off the grid" as much as he could get away with without being arrested.

"Sure enough that power transmission tower 'crazy Uncle Wayne' was griping about at the Labor Day cookout squats *just* outside of his actual property line. Dispatching a few zombies and bloatflies I find that some enterprising souls had begun to establish a crude chemistry lab inside the place.

"Guessing they missed the ventilation system poking out of the ground in the backyard a short distance from the septic field. I find the trapdoor and clamber down into an earthen basement wherein a refrigerator, several sets of shelves, a bathtub and, surprise surprise, Uncle Wayne's workbench. A tunnel leads somewhat drunkenly further into the hillside that comprises part of the backyard. Utility lines run the length of the tunnel: clearly Uncle Wayne was able to live "off the grid" by splicing into it.

"Radiation counter hissing and sputtering I pull open that faded blue door. Ahead of me the zombified carcass of what was once 'Crazy Uncle Wayne' gnaws on some unfortunate thing that made the mistake of burrowing into this last room.

"The war's been raging for years, surely no one would be mad enough to trigger the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) global doctrine that prevents total atomic annihilation?

"Breakfast, coffee with a spike of rum to warm the belly and a drag on a Grey Tortoise cigarette before small talk with Nate. Codsworth, our new Mr. Handy robot, is adapting quite well to household service.

"I think Codsworth will look pretty snazzy in a bowler hat.

"The newly developed suburb of Sanctuary Hills features thirteen homes. Some with carports, some without. All feature generously sized yards fenced in still-fresh-smelling white painted picket fencing.

"We're far better off than most Americans. Everything is expensive. Dollars stagger under the crushing effects of steadily increasing inflation. What a hundred bucks gets you now is about what ten bucks used to get after the resource rioting was finally put down. A black market in Nuka-Cola bottlecaps has sprung up because they're real, not paper greenbacks. The various Cola flavors are coming into vogue among the teenage crowd as various denominations.

"The dog's been missing for a while the stubborn beast. Cats don't do that if they like you. Maybe I should get a cat? Nate's been insisting on waiting for the pooch to return despite insisting on calling him Dogmeat.

"I love my husband, but Dogmeat? Dogmeat?! That's begging the universe to eat him. It's about the same thing as naming your cat Sausage or your pygmy pig Bacon. They're going to get eaten.

"Then the unthinkable happens. New York and Philadelphia are the first cities publicly acknowledged as first struck by atomic weapons. Boston is confirmed as having inbound warheads within the next few minutes.

"We flee to Vault 111, just in the nick of time as in the distance an atomic mushroom cloud erupts from the vicinity of the Commonwealth Institute of Technology.

"What we are told are 'decontamination pods' are clearly cryogenic stasis pods the moment they're activated. Vault-Tec lied through their teeth to us! When I get out of th...

"I awaken, bones and flesh ache from the thawing. A man wearing a bizarre hodgepodge of armor and leather wields a .44 hand cannon escorting a woman clad in a medical environmental suit with a mirrored faceplate that somewhat muffles her voice. At least one other voice can be heard to my right as I stare in horror, helpless as they open Nate's pod.

"Nate has Shaun. Oh ... oh you sunsab+&*!es ...

"Nate refuses their demands for Shaun, so the balding man administers a .44 Magnum cranial evacuation to Nate. His female minion seizes squalling Shaun while that scarred-face balding bastard comments "At least we have the back-up" while looking into my cryopod before stasis resumes.

"Someone has a vicious sense of timing. Or Vault-Tec's technology finally gives up the ghost, releasing me coughing and spluttering onto the Vault floor. I pop Nate's cryo-pod open. It shouldn't be real, but there he is, all husband and brains and gwilch, Shaun is gone ...

"Inside my head, a cold feminine voice purrs.

"Time to get to work Valkyrie. Nate and Nora are dead. Shaun could be out there, somewhere, or be long dead himself. We have no idea how much time has passed. We. Do. Not. Have. TIME. Mourn later. Get up. Get out of this wretched vault. Get your stash out of the root cellar you helped build. Yes, that stash. Now get!"

"A dozen or so dead radiation-mutated cockroaches - some the size of dogs - get stomped, smashed and shot on my way out of Vault 111. I daren't look at the shattered husk of my former home, not now. Codsworth was probably fried by the EMP so there's no point lingering any longer than is absolutely necessary.

"Old habits and skills return very quickly. My sidearm is cleaned and serviced before checking the ammunition and topping off several magazines with the viable rounds. A Portable workbench and accessories are packed up. I use the radiation-free dirt in the shelter to blacken my face and hair, then dismantle the available fabrics into a pair of gloves and a crude 'cape' to better endure the rain and Lord knows what else.

"Internal systems diagnostics automatically run every quarter-hour. They came through the cryogenic storage just fine. Given sufficient material intake / absorbability, the theory was that I and those like me would physically survive and thrive for centuries. Our minds are another matter. We'll see I suppose.

"Am I the only one left?" "Something I said aloud inside Vault 111 comes to mind. By my count a total of three dozen distinct sets of bones and frozen cadavers are in and around the immediate vicinity of Vault 111. Someday I'll return and bury them properly.