Chapter Text
Aileen awoke, rudely jostled while a piercing blare of an alarm rang through the bedroom. The sound seemed amplified in her half-conscious state.
“Wake up!” the voice she recognized now urged, and her friend shook her roughly again.
“Whadya want?!” grumbled Aileen. She hated getting woke up when she was deep asleep.
“Wake UP! You have to go, NOW!!”
“I have to go where?” she sighed, sitting up trying to rub the sleep out of her head. She really wished Amata was making more sense. And she wished someone would shut off that alarm clock already.
“You have to leave. Get up! We don’t have much time,” Amata insisted. She dragged Aileen out of bed, who complied as she battled her sleepy vertigo. Once she had stood up straight, Aileen blinked around, taking in her surrounding much more clearly.
“Amata, you want to tell me what’s going on? Why are the lights blinking? And whats that noise? Is that a real alarm?” Aileen asked, noting the flashing red lights above the doorways out in the hall.
“There’s no time to explain everything,” Amata rushed. “Your father is gone. Everyone’s going crazy looking for him. I had to come get you. You have to leave! My fa—.”
“Wait!” Aileen interrupted, snapping her head to attention. “What do you mean, my father is ‘gone?!’ Gone where?”
“He left the Vault. I don’t know how he opened it. I just know that he did, and he got out. And now MY father is livid! Hes going to come looking for you. He thinks you were in on it as some sort of conspiracy or something. He already sent the guards out, but some of them are probably getting caught up trying to get rid of the bugs that got in. They’re armed. I was able to get here in time after I overheard them talking in his office. But it might be too late!” Amata cried, clutching her head in her hands in frustration. Aileen stood, staring at her, stunned for a few seconds.
“Can you help me? Maybe I can talk to your dad,” Aileen suggested, her voice trembling and hollow.
‘How could this happen?’ she wondered. ‘How could my dad leave me? It can’t be true!’ she desperately hoped. But, that hope that she was still sleeping and just hearing the alarm to get up for morning shift started fading the more the blare of the security alarms reverberated through the steel walls of her room, and the look of terror on Amata’s face grew darker.
“I’ll help you get out of here,” Amata looked at her solemnly. Seeing Aileen’s face shifting between confusion and terror, she went on, “Yes, you need to get out out of here. Don’t go the main way, though. The main ways blocked, with guards set up. Go instead to my fathers office. There’s a control panel that opens up a secret entrance to the vaults door. Get there, then get out fast. You might need this, though I hope you won’t,” Amata said, her voice lowering to a fearful hush. She held up a gun for Aileen to take. Aileen’s eyes widened. “I got it from my father’s office.”
“I—I can’t.”
“Take it!” Amata screamed at her. Aileen gingerly took the metal weapon into her hand, unaccustomed to holding something potentially lethal in her hands.
“I’ll only use it if I absolutely have to,” she stammered, trying to steel herself and sound more bold than she felt. Amata nodded after a beat, sucking in her breath.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Aileen replied weakly. Her legs felt like they were turning to jelly, and she felt like fainting from fear. Never in a million years did she imagine something like this actually happening. “You’re a good friend,” she choked.
Amata hugged her. “Be careful out there.” Then she bolted and ran, leaving Aileen standing with her arms still half-outstretched. Now her best friend was gone, too. She suddenly felt frighteningly alone.
Forcing herself out of an impending breakdown, Aileen snapped her attention to what needed to be done. She slammed her feet into her shoes, tied hurried knots, then sprang off her bed and snatched an extra set of clothes form her dresser. She stuffed the garments into her maintenance supply bag. She picked up the old baseball bat that had once belonged to her father. If there were bugs and armed guards, she wanted to be ready. Her arms trembled again. The familiar feel of the wood grain in her hand gave her a moment of comfort. She longed for the BB gun he’d gifted her, but it was hidden in the reactor room many levels below.
I have to find him. If this is actually happening, I have to get out there and find him and bring him back, and show the Overseer—everyone—that this was just all a huge misunderstanding, she thought. He couldn’t have gone far. Somehow, she got the feeling that he may have gotten a significant lead. Anxiously trying to prepare herself for the unexpected, she glanced around her room one last time. She grabbed the open tin on the desk, her personal first aid kit. The Fancy Lads snack cakes she had been saving went into the bag as well as an afterthought, ‘Probably to be crushed,’ Aileen realized with a pang of regret. And without any more thought, she turned and left the cold but familiar room, the door closing behind her with a small sighing whoosh.
. . . . .
The noise outside in the corridor was much worse; the blare of the alarm, the shouting and thudding of feet in the corridors above. The smell of sweat and fear and danger seemed to be all around her, and she immediately ducked down behind the corner to avoid being seen. It turned out to be empty in her immediate vicinity, so she took it as a good sign and hoped shed have enough time to make it to the upper level.
She crept around past the other apartments. Rounding another corner as she left the female quarters, she spied a flare of orange flame and heard the electronic voice of Andy, the Mr. Handy unit, exclaiming in indignation at the intruders it was cooking with a fiery spray from his flamethrower attachment. These radroaches were huge! Several were bigger than her forearm! The robot paid her no heed, and after briefly considering whether to make her way past Andy’s war on a couple of radroaches to reach the set of stairs, she turned instead to go the opposite way. Shed been sure shed seen the guards shadows coming from the top of the stairs. It would probably be safer to take the detour around the men’s sleeping quarters and take the other flight near there.
Cautiously, she peered around the corner into the hall that connected the living quarters to the classroom. The path from the classroom end was the more traveled, she thought, so she went toward the other end. Just as she had started to jog anxiously that way, a figure came out from behind the dividing wire screen that ran length-wise down half the hall. Seeing the guard uniform stopped her in her tracks and she got ready to hide, hoping she hadn’t already been spotted. It was too late.
“Hey!” the gruff voice exclaimed.
“Officer Gomez!” yelled Aileen in surprise. She felt a glimmer of hope.
“You know you’re in big trouble right? The Overseers looking everywhere for you.” He peered at her with black scrutinizing eyes. “I’m supposed to arrest you and take you to him if I find you.”
“Officer Gomez, please, just listen!”Aileen pleaded, hands outstretched, struggling to hold on to that shred of hope. “I didn’t do anything wrong! I woke up and my father was gone. I don’t know why or to where.” She stopped and waited for Gomez to reply.
“Your father committed one of the biggest crimes. He’s put the whole Vault in danger.” He looked over at the bag Aileen was carrying. “You gonna go looking for him?” he asked, brows furrowed.
Aileen nodded. “I have to find him. I’m not safe here anymore if the Overseer thinks I’ve been hatching some plan with him, and who knows what might happen to him out there. If I find him and bring him back, maybe this can be fixed, and the Overseer will let us back in,” she explained.
Officer Gomez shook his head slowly. “Ayy, these kids.” He thought for a few seconds and smiled grimly. “I’m going to let you go, then. Your father has always been a good man, a good friend, and I’ve always liked the two of you. You say you didn’t know James was planning to leave?”
Aileen nodded earnestly.
“Maybe this mess can be all fixed.” But he frowned, as if the image of a less than ideal outcome had invaded his mind. He sighed. “Go on, get out of here. But be careful. Youre lucky you ran into me. The other guards might not be as understanding.”
Aileen breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Officer Gomez!”
“Go find James!”
She gave a tense, grateful smile, and gripped her pack ready to run past him.
“Ah!” he said, stopping her with his hand. There are more guards up that way than if you go down to the other end of the hall, believe it or not. Besides, once you get to the second level on that side, it should be easier to sneak through undetected. Just watch out for the guards at the vault entrance. Aileen nodded, then broke into a run towards the classroom end of the hall, the way she had at first rejected.
She was nearly to the end of the corridor when a familiar voice stopped her. She skidded to a halt, exasperated, wanting to just get out of there.
“Hey! Help! I need your help!” Butch yelled.
Aileen’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Why should I?” she retorted. If there was one person she didn’t want to be around, it was Butch DeLoira, and least of all now.
“It’s my mom. You gotta save her! Th—the radroaches, they got in and started attacking her. You need to help!” he begged her, panicked.
She looked at him dumbfounded. ‘Butch is actually asking me, his arch nemesis, for help?’ she thought, stunned. “Why don’t you help her? She’s your mother!” she told him pointedly. He looked at her sheepishly, his eyes bugging out in fear. “Wait. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of some radroaches!” she cried in disbelief.
“NO! I mean—.” He blushed. “Look, just help her, man! Please! Ill never beat you up again!”
Aileen was surprised at the desperation and helplessness on his face. Not at all like the Butch she knew. She looked back at the end of the hall. She was running out of time. Her heart pushed her away from the stairs leading to her freedom, though, and she turned back to Butch who looked as if he was about to cry.
“C’mon, lets go help your mom,” she said grabbing him by the arm. He led her to the apartments.
“Stop it! Butch, help meeeee!!” a woman screamed.
Aileen and Butch broke into a full run. They reached the apartment when Butch suddenly stopped in his tracks. Aileen turned around to glare at him.
“What’re you waiting for?!” she shouted at him. He stood frozen in place at the doorway, his face contorting in fear. “C’mon!!”
“It’s dark in there!” he said, refusing to budge.
Aileen huffed. “You big baby.” She punched the button on the wall that controlled the lights, but nothing happened.
“They don’t work!” Butch yelled at her, as if she was supposed to have known. Another scream was heard from the room in back. “Help her! Please!!” he begged, more agitated than ever.
Aileen ran to where she heard the woman pleading for help. Ellen DeLoria was on her knees curled up to the floor, her hands shielding her face and head from the biting insects.
Aileen counted four radroaches and picked up her bat. Aiming carefully so as to not hit the woman, she swung the wooden bat down on the closest one with a sickening crunch of exoskeleton. One more hit and it was dead. She swung at the one that was on Mrs. DeLoria’s back trying to bite her neck and knocked it to the ground. The insect quickly righted itself and leapt at Aileen. She jumped out of its way and squashed it with the bat, too. Turning back to the woman on the ground, Aileen dropped the bat, afraid to hurt her, and started pummeling the remaining roaches with her fists instead. She made short work of them with only a few scratches to her face and arms, and whacked them each at least once with the bat for good measure once they were on the floor.
The woman uncovered her head tentatively and sat up.
“Mrs. DeLoria, are you okay?” Aileen asked, helping her stand up. Butch’s mom seemed stunned and looked at her, frightened. “It’s alright now, the roaches are gone.”
Ellen DeLoria seemed to recognize her. “Oh, its you! Thank you! Wheres Butch?” she asked, looking around with a dazed expression. Even from where she stood, Aileen could smell the fumes of vodka.
“He’s outside, she replied, taking the woman’s arm and leading her to the door. “Butch found me and asked me for help. I think I can still run faster than him, though,” she explained.
They reached the entrance and stepped out into the light. Butch’s anxious face broke into a smile.
“Mom!” he chocked, grabbing the lady in a tight hug. Aileen watched the scene in surprise and mild amusement.
“Thank you! I couldn’ta done it without your help,” he said, looking at Aileen in earnest.
“No problem. Listen, I’d better go. You take care of yourselves.” Aileen picked up her pack where she had dropped it.
“Where’re ya goin?” he asked.
“I can’t exactly say,” she replied.
“Oh. Okay well, thanks again, man.”
She turned to go, anxious to get out of there.
“Wait!” Butch stopped her. “I want you to have this, he said.” Aileen stopped. Butch removed his jacket and held it out to her.
“Butch, I don’t want your stupid jacket,” she said. “I need to get outta here.”
“Well, too bad! It’s not stupid. And I’m giving it to you, so you’re gonna keep it!” he insisted.
Aileen took the leather jacket. “Thanks, man,” she smiled despite herself. She wondered sadly whether Butch had any idea what was even going on right now, or whether shed ever even have the need to wear that jacket.
“You can be part of my gang now,” he said with a grin.
Aileen let out a chuckle. She slung the jacket through the strap and looped the pack over her shoulder. “Seriously, I need to go now,” she insisted.
“Alright, alright. See ya around, man. Hey!” he called as she stepped away. “Be careful. I hear they’re looking for you.”
. . . . .
All around the atrium was chaos: chairs toppled over, people running around panicked, some walking around looking dazed, guards trying to restore order yelling at everyone to get back to their rooms. She limped along the wall, her knee still smarting from where she fell while running through the darkened dining area. She willed herself to be as inconspicuous as she could, hoping that everyone would be too distracted to notice her.
‘Maybe I should start running around like that too,’ she thought to herself. ‘Maybe it’ll help me blend in better,’ she smiled inwardly at her joke.
She snuck a glance into one of the windows she had reached. It was empty. She slipped into the clinic when she saw the guards were preoccupied elsewhere, and glanced about frantically trying to find anything of use. Blinking back angry tears she made her way across the room toward the desk. Opening and closing drawers, strewing papers and folders onto the floor, she slammed her fists on the desk angrily as her search yielded no information of import to her. A pencil near her hand jumped, drawing her attention to a stack of papers on top of the desk. She started rummaging through them, sending them flying every which way. Nothing seemed to give a clue as to where or why James had gone. Then, her hand hit something bulkier than paper with a clatter. She slid a few papers out of the way and saw a holotape lying there. Quickly, she snatched it up, and was about to play it back to find out if it was a clue about her father when she heard yelling outside. It sounded like guards, judging from the accompanying sound of boots, headed her way. She pocketed the tape, and slid to a crouch behind the desk, her hand on the pistol Amata had given her.
The stomping of boots passed and she dared to peek out again. As she scanned the desk and room once again, the picture of her and her father in a little frame caught her eye. She grabbed it and stuffed it in her pack. She then crawled to one of the lockers where the medical supplies were kept and took a couple of Band-Aids and stimpaks, adding them to her inventory. She might need them if she kept tripping and falling the way she had.
She was about to leave when a framed white square caught her eye. It was her mother’s favorite quote. She strode over to it and started to remove it from the wall to take with her, but the picture was too big to carry in her pack. Thinking quickly, she turned the frame over and slid the cross-stitched fabric out.
As she was rolling it up, she noticed that behind the frame was not a bare steel wall as she had always assumed. In front of her was a combination lock embedded in the wall. She peered over her shoulder, straining to hear if there was anyone nearby. Biting her lip, she flung the frame to one side, careful not to break the glass, and pressed her ear to the safe. Forcing herself to concentrate and listen past the blood pounding loudly in her ears, she focused on the small *click* *click*s the tumblers made as she tried to figure out the combination. Within two minutes she heard a satisfying louder *click!* as it unlocked. She swung the small metal door open to reveal a drawstring bag. With little time to scrutinize everything to see if it was useful, she decided to empty out the safe completely. She swept the pouch into her own bag with a jingle as it landed. There was also a small box of bullets on one side, too, which surprised her since she never imagined her father having his own gun. They were strictly prohibited to civilians, and, as far as she could remember, even the guards who could get access to them had never used them.
Until now, she reminded herself, remembering seeing with surprise a gun on Officer Gomezs hip, in addition to the black baton the guards usually carried, and the guns the other guards who had been ordering people to their rooms had carried. Not to mention the gun Amata had presented to her.
Aileen shuddered involuntarily, feeling fear in the pit of her stomach. What had happened to the world around her?
She swept the box into the bag, figuring she might as well carry that, too, and hurriedly tossed in a few scraps of paper that were left. Finally, she turned to go. Peeking outside the window, she saw that the atrium was not nearly as full as when she had entered the clinic.
‘I’ve waited too long!’ she thought in a panic. She might not be able to sneak by them afterwards, and they had probably discovered that she wasn’t in her room by now, too. She felt herself getting lightheaded. She took a few deep breaths and then looked out again.
There were only two guards out. One of them was trying to calm the elderly Mrs. Stevens and convince her to go back to her quarters. He accompanied her to the staircase and started the arduous process of helping her climb down.
She turned her attention to the other guard, who was standing there blocking the way she needed to go. Suddenly, though, a figure obscured her view. Her heart stopped beating; she was sure she had been discovered. She ducked away from the window and pressed herself against the narrow piece of metal wall between the window and automatic door. If, by some miracle they hadn’t seen her, all they’d have to do would be to walk through the door and find her. There’d be no time for her to hide.
She remained completely frozen. The guard yelled something from across the way, and then she heard a voice very much near her call out in reply,
“Have you looked in the reactor room?”
The other person answered unintelligibly, followed by the voice outside the window shouting back.
“Did you check it well? That girl knows the place better than any of you!”
Aileen stood still as a statue except for her hand creeping to her pack to reach for the baseball bat, as she waited with bated breath for this person to walk in to search the clinic. Instead she heard a low voice speak.
“Come out from there, before they come back.”
Aileen hesitated. Her heart jumped.
“Did you hear me? Get out before they come back!”
“Mr. Brotch?!”
“Get going, Grant,” her teacher repeated. “There’s not much time. I never imagined James, of all people—.”
“Do you know where he is?” she asked, near tears. She peeked nervously about, listening for the tell-tale footfalls of the guards steps.
“We were hoping you’d tell us. The Overseers not happy about this.” Edwin Brotch looked down at her, his eyes showing a weary soul finally cracking through decades of facade. “Go, Ai.”
A knot in her throat closed up, the familiar nickname not something he’d called her since she’d been a small child.
“I’m going to find him.” Tears threatened to spill again, so she gave him a final nod goodbye. “Thank you. For everything.”
. . . . .
Aileen looked up at a circular window that overlooked the atrium. In the room beyond that window, her life’s fate would likely be determined. Her heart pounded like it was trying to run away as she turned her eyes to the doorway and walked closer to the set of stairs that were just beyond her line of vision.
Peering around the corner and toward the top of the stairs as had become her new habit, and determining that there was no one ready to ambush her, she began to climb the steps. She willed her leaden legs to move faster and made it to the top landing without pausing to even breathe. She had only been up here on a few occasions, to help fix something basic like a wire or a stuck button. First, she would have to go through the server room. Past that were the Overseers personal room and the Overseers office.
She reached the end of the hall and peeked through the doorway on her left. The servers were lined up in several rows across the large room, blinking with hundreds of red lights. Computer stations lined the walls along the two inlet-like sections that shaped one side of the room like a ‘W’. She tiptoed into the room, using the first row of servers as cover. Looking through a slot she noticed a guard standing across from her, right where she needed to go through. Another voice further back told her there was at least one other guard, and who knew how many more between there and the Overseers office. Mentally kicking herself for not being more cautious she began thinking furiously of a way to get past them, hoping to have enough time to create a distraction, but then the guard that was nearest to her hiding place moved closer, in the space between the servers and wall. Now, the doorway and most of the space between was in his line of sight, and she could easily be spotted if she tried to leave back that way. Peering through the slot again, she realized that she couldn’t even see which way he was facing and time an escape based on that!
“You there!” she heard behind her.
She turned, startled out of her skin to see a guard standing there almost as surprised as she was. The guard she had been watching ran out from around the server and leered at her with a malevolent glint in his eye. She recognized him as Stevie Mack, and bile rose in her throat.
She didn’t break her run as a third guard popped out from the doorway in front of her and planted himself in the center of the path. Instead, she rammed herself against his stomach, catching him off guard. He gave a surprised “Oof!” and stumbled back. She saw spots of light but adrenaline kept her moving. Taking advantage of the extra clearance she had created between the guard and the wall, she spun to the side, dodging his reflexive grasp. A gunshot sounded behind her, hitting the steel wall with a metallic ricochet and prompting her to cover her head with her hands. She heard an angry yell and realized that the two guards who had crashed into each other had gotten back up and were coming after her again. She heard two or three more bullets zing by her as she reached the other end of the server room.
Heedless now to the possibility of more guards before her, she darted around the corner and careened down the hall. Her only thought was to get as far away as possible from those men shooting at her.
The corridor led her up a short flight of stairs and turned into another hall that branched off on either side. Quickly but quietly she moved, staying close to the walls, listening and peering around window corners as she passed rooms. The two she had passed so far had looked like sleeping quarters.
Following the sound of voices, she came to a room off to the side with windows all along one length. To her surprise, she heard Amata’s voice choked by sobs.
“Please, don’t hurt her! Don’t let the guards hurt her, too. She hasn’t done anything wrong!”
“Tell me where she is, Amata! Did you talk to her? Where did her father go?” roared a voice. So the Overseer was in there, too.
‘Poor Amata!’ Aileen thought, biting her knuckles. She chanced a peek from under the window. Amata was sitting in a metal chair, the Overseer pacing angrily around her. Another guard stood off to the side, his back toward Aileen.
Amata remained silent, seemingly trying to find what to say.
“Tell you what,” the Overseer said in a singsong voice, failing to hide the venomous anger underneath. “Tell me where your little friend is, and I’ll make sure nobody hurts her. I just want to talk to her.”
“She doesn’t know anything, Dad! She didn’t do anything wrong, either!”
“WHERE IS SHE?” he bellowed. Aileen ducked back down under the window, cowering in fear. She looked back up, half expecting to see the Overseer storming toward the door to look for her himself. Instead she saw him standing directly in front of Amata, face red and eyes bulging in rage, his hand raised ready to strike her. Amata looked back up at him directly in the eyes.
“Dad,” she said quietly. “She doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s just as scared—as scared as I am right now, if not more so.” Amata indeed looked terrified, and she’d seen her father angry before. Just, never this angry.
The Overseer remained frozen save for his shaking from anger. His raised hand wavered, though, and he lowered it just an inch, and then let it fall to his side. His face, too, fell, changing from an expression bursting with rage to one of extreme frustration mixed with the slightest hint of shame and sadness.
“I want you to take Amata to her room,” he said to his guard, still watching his daughter. “Make sure she stays in there. She is not to come out until I—.”
A shout from down the hall interrupted him, and Aileen remembered with a start that the guards had followed her all the way up here.
“Well see about your friend, now,” said the Overseer distractedly to Amata, heading toward the door after all. Aileen scurried around the corner just as he exited the room. He sped past her hiding spot and went down the hall to meet the guards, thinking they had captured her. She followed him for a few steps before turning where the hallway branched off again on the same side she was on. She had skipped this room in order to investigate the conversation she had just overheard.
She froze in her tracks.
“Jonas!”
Aileen fell to the ground beside her friend—her father’s friend—and picked up his head gently. She gasped, seeing the blood trickled from his bruised and beaten face. His glasses lay smashed on the floor.
“Jonas—no! she sobbed. They’d killed her fathers assistant, one of the smarted and kindest people in the vault. And they were coming for her, next.
On impulse, she searched his pockets for a clue, a key, a note, anything that could help her now. With shaking hands, she pulled out a holodisk from the inside pocket of his lab coat, and slipped it into her bag. She pressed a hand to Jonas’s cheek in farewell, and ran out.
This, at last, was the Overseers office. A round window on the other side of the room overlooked the atrium. A desk sat in the middle, with a solid black chair planted into the floor. On the back wall was a large map of some sort, and next to it sat a computer terminal. Other than that and a locker in the corner, the room was bare. Securing the doors electronic lock with an override, she looked around.
Where was the secret exit Amata had told her about?
Aileen strode over to the computer behind the desk, and realized that she was holding the gun Amata had given her tightly in her hand. She slid it into her utility belt, hands trembling, and glanced over her shoulder, wondering how much time she had left. Seconds, probably. She accessed the computer after a lucky guess at the log-in password, and looked for something that hinted to Open passage.
A likely heading sat at the bottom of the list of entries. She was about to click on it when something caught her eye; several of the other entries. One said Scouting Expedition: Entry 1, another, Expedition 2. Another, she realized, was a file on her father. She opened the first file and quickly scanned it. There was something about a radio transmission that the Vault scanners had picked up, saying they were from the United States government. A team of guards had been sent out to explore the outside world. A picture of a large metal wall-like structure labeled Megaton settlement graced the side of one of the small paragraphs, with a caption stating it was situated south of the Vault. Aileen opened another entry, which was brief and noted that they had also come across a large insect, an ant. There was a picture of it as well. She quickly downloaded the files to a holodisk lying about.
She opened the file on her father. It turned out to be rather old, from around the time she had been born. From what she was able to gather in a few seconds of scanning, it seemed the Overseer had not thought kindly of her father even back then. It must’ve been back when the Overseer had just gotten elected
She heard shouting from down the hall, and clicked on the file she hoped was the one that would let her out of here. An entry box appeared in the center of the screen: Password, it read. Aileen’s mind drew a blank, frozen in surety that she would now be caught and tried for treason and endangerment to the safety of the Vault, the two most serious crimes you could commit.
“Amata,” she heard a voice say behind her.
She turned and saw her friend standing there, breathing hard as if she, too, was running for her life. Aileen jumped up in surprise.
How did you?
Amata held up what looked like a card with wires. Aileen recognized it from when they’d built it.
“The password is my name,” she stated again, nodding toward the computer.
Aileen turned and quickly typed in the password and hit Enter. The screen unlocked and a grating noise sounded behind her. She saw the floor behind the desk begin to open up. She ran up to it, the yelling voices just seconds away from the door.
“Amata! I wanted to help you! I heard you talking with the Overseer. I’m sorry! I just froze and—.”
“It’s fine”, Amata held up her hand to stop her. “I know my father. He would punish me less severely than he would you,” she said.
“Come with me!” Aileen cried, gripping Amata’s arms tightly.
“I can’t. Go!”
Aileen gave her a tight hug and sprang to the opening. The Overseer and the guards burst in at that moment.
“I knew you were just as bad as that traitor, James!” he shrieked, pointing a finger at her. He lunged forward. “Get away from there!”
“I need to find him!” Aileen screamed, and dove into the hole. She missed a couple of steps and fell forward, tumbling round and around down the spiral staircase.
She clambered back up to her feet when a wall at the bottom ended her descent, and ran down the last couple of steps. The dark, unlit stairway gave way to a soft, electric light, and she stepped into the small control room by the main entrance.
Something caught her foot and she went flying forward, landing on the metal floor with a bone-rattling thud. She looked behind her and saw a guard lying there at her feet. She rolled him over. His face was pale, but he was breathing. Aileen, hardly thinking, quickly but carefully removed his helmet and stuck it on her own head; she was afraid of being shot at again. She picked up the baton lying a few inches away from his shoulder. The angry voice of the Overseer reached her ears from the stairwell.
She stood up and ran out the door into the room that held several humming transformers. Her bag was lying at the bottom of the steps where it had landed. She scooped it up and slung it over her shoulder, the handle of her bat and half of Butch’s jacket sticking out. She could see the railing now that separated her from the Vaults door. She clutched the handle of the baton, bracing her arm, ready to swing at anything that blocked her path. She flew to the control panel and slammed her hand down on the button, then pulled the lever down to open the door. Off to her right, she saw two guards at the far end of the hallway. They turned and spotted her as the blaring of the doors clearance alarm sounded, yelling in surprise before running after her.
Feet pounding, she rounded the steel railing, flew down the steps past the control panel, and ran along the depression toward the Vaults giant cog of a door.
“GET HER!! Close the door! CLOSE THE DOOR!” the Overseer yelled. Aileen tuned him out, solely focused on getting away. The guards looked at each other panicked, and the closest one slammed a fist onto the control panel, punching the giant red button again and pushed the lever up.
The alarm started up again, security lights flashing, and the clearance warning sounded painfully loud in the steel passage. The door started moving back into place with a piercing grinding and screeching. Aileen had almost reached it when it dawned on her with a weird clarity of thought that this was the second time the Vaults door had ever opened since it had first been sealed shut.
The door was half shut when she ran through it. She stopped and turned in time to see the Overseer reach the railing at the top of the platform. He stopped, doubled over, clutching at his side, and looked over to the guards who were standing there staring at her in disbelief. He followed their gaze and saw her standing on the other side of the Vaults door, looking back at him with a stunned expression, and his face contorted with hatred and rage.
“Traitor!!” he spat. Aileen flinched, but did not move. She stood, mesmerized as they were, at the sight of another framed on the other side of the open Vault entrance.
The large steel door continued to roll shut. She saw the Overseer turn his back to her and step toward the corridor. She could just make out what he said to the guards.
“Let the wastes have her now.”
A moment later the Vault door gave one last deafening clang, and sealed shut with a hiss of air.