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Overseer Sam Hill's Terminal
Monday, June/13/2287
I gave her all the chances I could, more even. The other vault dwellers wanted her out several incidences ago, but I was able to convince them to let to keep trying, she was only a kid. Well now she was twenty years old and still wouldn't do a damn thing.
She, just like all her classmates, took the special exam to help decide her talents and what job she should have when she was older. At seventeen, when she was assigned the job all she did was stir up conflict and drama. The other workers would complain she wasn't doing her job, she'd say she couldn't do it because they're doing things wrong. After trying to fix their problems multiple times I decided they were just an incompatible group and assigned her somewhere new. She did the same damn thing there.
Within two years she went through nearly every job available in the vault, overseer excluded of course. Not a day went by when I wasn't called down to where she worked for some problem or another.
I wanted it to work it, so badly did I want it to work out. I knew she'd been troubled since she was a kid, who wouldn't be when they were the only orphan in the vault? But no matter how much attention and sympathy I showed her, nothing seemed to get through to her.
The other vault dwellers were calling for her exile, or worse, her head. I didn't want to exile her, but even more so, I didn't want her dead. She was a troublemaker, yes, but it wasn't like she'd ever hurt anyone.
I worried about her being exiled, about being the cause of her death. Or worse, her bringing raiders to our doorstep in an act of revenge I wouldn't entirely blame her for. I had one more trick up my sleeve, I only prayed that it worked.
Once a year our vault was visited by a caravan trader by the name of Atticus. Atticus was an older man, scruffy and unshaven, who would bring us supplies I asked him for. In exchange, I often gave him caps or our home grown food. He looked scary, I knew, but every time he came by, he'd bring little gifts for the children. He was polite and seemed very kind.
I could only pray I wasn't getting her into worse trouble.
The next time Atticus came by I called the girl into my office. I told her that there was only one more job she could try out.
"I thought you've run me through them all already." She had said.
"This one is very difficult and risky," I told her. "I'm only assigning it to you because none of the others fit you. But know this, if you don't take this job your only other choice is to do one of the other jobs and keep your mouth shut. No more causing a fuss."
"Or I'll be exiled, I get it."
I could only look at her sadly. I hoped that she would see how hard it was outside the vault and come back home, willing to put up with whatever she was struggling with for the peace and safety of the vault. And if she did end up exiled, I prayed this trip would give her some knowledge of how to survive out there, that I wouldn't be sending a lamb into the lion's den.
Atticus allowed her the come along, thank god. I explained her situation a little and he stood quietly for so long I was sure he'd refuse. He shook his head in shame, but agreed.
"I'll try to keep her safe, I promise." he told me before I called her to the vault door. I don't know why I believed him, but I did.
The girl came down to the vault door already scowling. I didn't blame her. I still tried to make it as best as I could for her. I packed her a lunch and a toy, to remind her of home. I made sure she had good shoes and a nice warm jacket. I considered giving her the note I had written, telling her that I hope she stayed safe and that I would worry every moment she was gone. I figured she'd hate it, so I left it in my pocket.
They left, Atticus, his brahmin, and the girl complaining the whole time of walking and how the brahmin smelled.
There was no way to contact Atticus. Atticus had no way to contact the vault.
The day after the girl left, many of the vault dwellers threw a celebration. The teenagers I understood, having grown up with the girl, but the older adults? That both made me impossibly mad and made it impossible to stop. An overseer was only as powerful as the dwellers allowed them to be. I could have stopped a small, inappropriate, celebration by the younger kids but not the whole vault.
Did they not realize this was often the beginning of the end of settlements? If you're willing to throw a young woman out to be killed over petty arguments, you'll have no loyalty to your other neighbors! Will they throw out the cook for over salting the soup? The teacher for giving the wrong grade? Their friend after they had a disagreement? Settlements were built on people working in tandem to achieve things no single person could. It didn't matter if you didn't like each other as long as things got done. That's the only reason I pushed the girl so far, because around her nothing ever got done.
Every night I worried about what evils were happening to her, what was she suffering through. When would Atticus be back with the next supply? Would I survive the next few months worrying? Would the girl survive?
The vault did get quieter. For a full six weeks the people seemed in perfect harmony, too overjoyed at the peace and quiet to fuss and bother. Until Dalton Mitchell, one of the young adults who'd fight with the girl all the time, started picking fights elsewhere.
"Why should I give you any slack, when you know what happens?" I asked him after calling him to my office. He stayed quiet, scowling at his shoes as he kicked the carpet. "It seems after she left you decided to take her place. Why is that?"
He said nothing.
I wondered if he was like me. Maybe his fighting with her was the only way he could talk to her. "Do you miss her?" I asked.
His head snapped up to me, his face incredulous and near smiling like I had said the funniest thing he'd heard. "I'm glad that bitch is gone!" His laugh told me not to wonder, not to bother.
I gave him latrine duty for a month. I wanted him as far away from me as possible.
Time passed by and people got used to the new normal, post-exile. Dalton continued his misbehavior, and I continued giving him latrine duty. Occasionally I would hear the dwellers whisper, "he's still nowhere near as bad as that girl."
Sunday, December/18/2287
Tuesday, Mr. Williams baked pecan pies for everyone. He showed me his most handsome smile, the kind you can't help but smile back at. He asked me what my plans were for the week but before I could answer I was called away to settle an argument between the Miller couple.
The pie was delicious, even cold.
Saturday, we held our monthly Slack Party. Slack parties were when there was less of a rush for things to get done, a cool down time between grievous assignments. When I was a child, we had three days off and my grandmother said she had nearly a week, but the declining state of the vault meant more upkeep with increasing frequently. We didn't have the time to sit down very often, so the one-day slack party had become even more precious to us. Even Dalton was on his best-ish behavior.
The children’s teacher, Mrs. Johnson, and I talked and laughed in a way we hadn't since we were children. We were best friends back then. Then she married Mr. Johnson, and I became the Overseer and we kind of fell out of touch, or at least as out of touch two people can get in a vault. She said I should come over sometime and see the baby. I said that was a good idea. We both knew it would never happen.
That night I cried alone in my bed, thinking of all the work that needed to get done, thinking of Mrs. Johnson holding her little baby alone in her room, thinking of Dalton sulking in the corner at the party, thinking of Mr. Williams's beautiful smile. I mostly thought of Atticus and the girl.
Another month passed by with no significance.
Caravans hardly ever kept a tight schedule. Many of them couldn't afford to. The wasteland was a dangerous place, and it was better to be late than dead. Atticus mostly arrived sometime during the spring months, the exact day varying by weeks.
During the middle of the winter, I knew there was no chance he'd arrive back anytime soon. If I was lucky, I would know by summer at the latest if he'd come back and she was safe. That didn't stop me from hoping every passing caravan and brahmin brought with them the girl.
Funny for it to happen on the night it did, the dead of winter when the vault was extra sealed down.
The frigid air leaked inside the vault making all the metal too cold to touch. Those who had to work, worked in heavy jackets and thick wool hats. The Wilson and Miller family held a 'slumber party' for all the kids, an exciting excuse that got all the kids in one place to huddle for warmth.
It was cold nights like this that monsters went looking for holes to hide away from the wind. Every year we got something, be it mole rats or raiders. My granny used to tell me stories of a deathclaw attack when she was young. As I grew up, I realized she was just entertaining a child. A vault like theirs would never have stood against a deathclaw.
That night I slept on and off in my bed only to be awoken by the alarm.
"Overseer, we need you to come down here quick!" I heard from my pip-boy.
I grabbed my gun and raced to the door. There waiting were the other guards in their coats and with their guns.
"What is it, Chris?" I asked the nightwatchman in charge of watching the CCTV.
I turned to the grainy green screen and I saw her. No coat and hair plastered to her skull, dripping with something viscous. Over the intercom I heard her, "Help! Please! Please open the door! Please!"
"Don't just stand there! Open the fucking door!” I shouted. "Someone get the doctor, quick! And bring me something warm to give her.”
"Please! Please open the door, anyone please!" she continued to cry.
I pressed the intercom button. "We're coming! We're opening the door! We'll be there as soon as possible just hang on!"
The door creaked open achingly slow. Mr. Williams handed me two old coats. I slipped through the doors before they even finished opening.
"I'm here! I'm here!" I couldn't stop myself from shouting.
The girl looked at me wide eyed and in the flood lights I saw the blood frozen in her hair. With her was only a brahmin covered in blankets, I saw no Atticus.
"Please you have to hurry!" She yelled, faced twisted in agony.
I wrapped the coats around her shoulders, but she didn't seem to notice. "Let's get inside quickly and you can tell me what's wrong."
"No! It's Atticus!"
"Atticus? Where is he? What did he do?"
"He's hurt! Please you have to help him. I put him on Daisy, but he's so badly hurt. Please, I can't-I can't," and she broke down in sobs, face hidden in her hands.
I took her into my arms and guided her into the vault. I told the guards there to bring in the brahmin. Luckily Mr. Martinez’s boy had brought down the doctor. Unfortunately, he also woke up nearly the entire vault and curious spectators decided to tag along.
I guided the girl to sit down at one of the tables, still sobbing and begging to save Atticus. I thought he must have been in bad shape to have not even stirred at the commotion.
I took the doctor to the brahmin and pulled the blankets off one by one. Finding Atticus, we all gagged and retched at the sight. One guard threw up. Luckily it had been so cold outside, or he would have smelled worse. I was sure this man had been dead for several days.
The doctor looked at me helplessly, "There's nothing I can do-"
"No! You have to help him!" the girl screamed, tears streaming down her face and leaving tear marks through the streaks of blood. "You have to! You have to!" She fell to her knees, body retching with sobs. There was a moment where none of us moved or spoke an inch but, watched the girl in the throes of despair in a way none of us had ever experienced.
When I was finally able to move, I knelt beside her and pulled the coats back around her shoulders. Her ears were nearly black as coal from the cold.
"Dr. Mitchell will do the best he can, okay?" I told her in my best calming voice possible. "They're going to bring him into the office right away, but I need you to come with me to get cleaned up."
"No, I need to be with him! I want to be at his side if he-"
"Listen to me, you'll just be in the way. Let's get you cleaned up and you can see him after, alright?"
She didn't say anything, but she let me lead her to my personal chambers where she'd have the most privacy. I helped her into the bath, still fully clothed, and washed the blood from her hair. After, as she got changed into one of her old vault suits in private, I told one of the guards to bring me some sedatives.
"When can I see Atticus?" she asked as soon as she was out of the bathroom.
"Soon," I lied and pulled out a chair for her. "Sit down, get some food and drink in your belly."
She ate mechanically and didn't notice the sedative in the flat Nuka cola. Soon I had her sleeping on the bed and brought in the doctor to look over her injuries.
"Overseer, what should we do with the body?" One of the guards asked me.
I sighed and stood up from my stool. "Let me look at it first."
It was the worst death I'd ever seen, the body desecrated. I couldn't imagine the girl lugging his carcass, still warm, up onto the brahmin's back. I didn't want to imagine it. My heart ached thinking about her traveling for days, hoping to make it in time to save him when he'd been dead all the while.
"Prepare the body for burial," I said to the guards. "Gather all his things for me. Be respectful."
It felt almost like sacrilegious to go through a dead man's things, but in post-war times people couldn't let anything go to waste. Most of the body's clothes were tattered and thread bare, hardly worth keeping. The leather coat though, I had seen him wearing it ever since I met him years ago. It was long, wool-lined and wonderfully made. Patched up really well except for-what I guessed-was more recent damage. I decided I would fix it up and give it to the girl. So she had something to remember him by.
Still late at night, just about everyone had gone back to bed and the night wound down once again. I sat in the mess hall with a glass of brandy rather than sleep. My bed was occupied, and I didn't feel the need urgently enough to try sleeping in the living area couch.
Mr. Williams would later shake me awake, telling me the girl had awoke. I had passed out with my head on the table, half the bottle gone. I checked the time, the breakfast shift. I was probably in his way.
"Sorry about that, I'll get going," I said and got up to head back to my room and check on the girl.
"Are you doing ok, Sam?" Mr. Williams asked.
I startled at his question, just the merest jump. At first, I wasn't really sure how to respond. "Yeah," I said. "Good luck today." I kept walking, I didn't have to see him to know the face he was making.
The girl wasn't in my room, she'd already got to the doctor's office. She stood there, looking at the cloth covered body. I hadn't wanted her to see him like that. I had wanted to talk to her first at least.
"I'm sorry," was all I could say.
She didn't say anything.
She didn't say anything at the burial, I only half expected her to. She spoke to him alone before he was covered. No one heard what she said. She left before anyone could ask.
Thursday, February/2/2288
She became the ghost that haunted vault 113. She ate little, barely spoke when spoken to, and often would stare into space for hours on end as she drifted listlessly from hallway to hallway. After a few weeks I gave her some tasks, to keep her body in motion if nothing else. She did it without complaint.
I waited to hear some comments about how much she had improved or how she'd lost her bad attitude, but I was relieved to find she had garnered much sympathy from the other dwellers. Well, most of them.
It was after weeks of not-quite-peaceful quiet when I got a call from security. From the background I could hear Dr. Mitchell screech, "She's going to kill him!"
I took the stairs two at a time, down to the hall of dorms.
There she was, pinning Dalton to the ground. One hand was gripping his neck, the other holding a knife as if to swing it down at him.
"Atticus told me he wouldn't teach me how to use a sniper rifle," She choked out from behind her clenched teeth. Tears stained her face. "Said it was easy to forget that you were killing if you did it through a scope from far away. He told me that I'd need to see a human die up close and see what dying does to someone before he'd teach me. He said he hoped I never had to."
I called out her name. In her surprised she dropped the knife and whirled around to look at me. The guards took their chance to remove her from Dalton.
What little sympathy she'd earned from the dwellers after her ordeal was quickly thrown away. I had no choice when they took her to the only cell our vault had. The overseer is only a leader when they allow it.
Dr. Mitchell was already calling for her exile, and most of the dwellers were taking his side.
We were alone in the musty old cell block, the girl and me. There used to be more cells but that vault section collapsed fifteen years ago and only one cell was left standing. The whole floor was always slightly damp after that.
"What happened?" I asked her through the bars. "Some of the others say he instigated it. What did he say to you to make you lose it like that? What did he do?"
She said nothing.
"Please tell me," I begged. "I might be able to convince them to let you go."
She turned to me then, and I could see it on her face. There was no stopping this from where it was going. She didn't trust me, and I couldn't blame her for it.
Monday, February/20/2288
For the next week, Dr. Mitchell cornered me every chance he got.
"I understand she's been through a lot, I know she's traumatized but traumatized or not we can't have people swinging knives around like crazy people!"
"It was a butter knife, doctor." I rolled my eyes.
"Next time it'll be a real knife or a lead pipe! Or who knows what else!" Dr. Mitchell shouted across my desk. "I know better than anyone that my son can be a little shit but if she is going to fly off the handle at the little provocation-"
"I've already agreed to exile her! Can you not wait a few fucking weeks for winter to pass?"
Dr. Mitchell blanched. I was quite taken aback myself. I hadn't yelled like that since ... ever, I don't think.
There was a moment in which I thought that would be all, that he would finally leave. But that would be too easy.
"I just worry she might get out is all," the doctor said, "and seek revenge."
I let out a long sigh and slumped in my seat, not giving a shit about professionalism for once in my life. "I don't want to send her to her death. I'm waiting for spring and that's final. I highly doubt she'd even try to get out of her cell."
When the alarm for the vault door rung out, I prayed it wasn't her, but we both knew it was.
The doctor allowed a few seconds to give me a smug little look before we both bolted down to the vault door.
She was long gone by the time we got there.
"I only stepped away for a few seconds I swear!" the guard in charge of the door that night cried.
Another guard burst from the doors going down the cells and shouted, "She's gone!" as if that wasn't obvious. I heard the whispers of some of the dwellers who'd come to see what the commotion was all about.
"Here's what the CCTV picked up," one of the guards said, pulling up the tape.
On the screen we watched as the girl snuck into the control room and opened the vault door. She wore the man's coat and hat. On her belt was the man's pistol and on her back was his rifle. Outside the door was the brahmin, as if it had been waiting for her. She took one last look at the camera, and I know that look was for me. She gave me one last nod, then left with the brahmin at her side.
I wiped my eyes as covertly as I could, as if I was rubbing my temples.
"We have to start a search," The doctor shouted. "We have to sweep the area! We need to find her before-"
"Why?" I asked and the doctor's shouted sputtered to a stop. "She's gone, exiled just as planned. Everyone go home. I'll debrief the new security details tomorrow once everyone's gotten a full rest."
The wind taken from his sails, the doctor left. The others followed until only Dalton remained. He stared at the now blank CCTV from the top of the staircase, his face unreadable.
"She's gone forever now," I called up to him. He just scowled at me, turned and left.
The next few days I went over the new security detail. One person would go to greet the caravan and the rest of the team would wait behind the door for any sign of an ambush.
"But if there is an attack, wouldn't the person outside the door get killed for sure?" One of the guards asked me.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of that part." I told them. "And other than trusted caravans, we open our door for no one. Got it?"
"Got it." They echoed.
Sunday, June/17/2288
This tactic went on for weeks, months. On my calendar, I ticked off the anniversary of when I first sent the girl off with the caravan trader.
The public living spaces stayed empty most days, people too scared to stay outside their locked dorms. Mr. Williams now cooked in a quiet mess hall, the only noise coming from the echo of clattering cookware. Individuals would come, get enough food for all their family members, and eat in their own quarters
One sleepless night, I found myself checking the CCTV of outside the vault. I watched the skeleton trees sway and wild fern unfurl. Occasionally, a bloatfly would pass by or the odd radstag.
I imagined the girl walking the long roads, feeling the radiated but fresh air. I hoped she was happier out there than she had been here.
A few days later I spoke to a trader who told me of a city a few days walk away. I think I'd like to go there maybe. A town where I don't have to remember anyone's name.