Vault 9 (Secret Santa for Enkidom)

[Blah!?]

Hey everyone, especially Enkidom!

I think this is actually the 3rd time I've written for you for Secret Santa! You're probably getting sick of me, but I'm certainly not sick of you! You're great fun to write for, and I think we have a lot of similar interests, and that definitely makes it easier.

Anyway, this here is a Fallout fanfic in the sense that it takes place in the Fallout universe, but it features all original characters. Hopefully it still fits with the proper Fallout atmosphere, and even more importantly, hopefully you'll enjoy it!

Here you go...

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Vault 9. Once a stronghold meant to survive the end of the world, it has long since fallen silent. Its metal corridors are dark, and its original dwellers are long dead. Most vaults that ceased functioning were usually discovered, and then either looted or taken over as hideouts by raiders. But not Vault 9. For over a hundred years, Vault 9 has been completely empty. Or, at least it was empty, until it was discovered by a pair of bumbling explorers.

"Haah… HEEII'KK! Uhh… Why does it always have to be so dusty everywhere we go?" A young woman named Ivy rubbed her nose sheepishly with the pointer finger of her left hand, holding the grip of her assault rifle loosely in her right. Her whole body was drooped over, subdued by her allergy to dust. It was an awful lot of fuss to be making over a simple allergy, and her companion was growing tired of it.

"Why do you always have to be so whiny everywhere we go?" A boy nearly 10 years younger than Ivy groaned behind his companion. His name was Owen, and despite still being in his early teens, he was infinitely more level-headed than spastic lady in front of him. However, he had a tendency to complain just as much as Ivy did, and as such, the two of them were constantly at odds.

"Because I… Ehh… Hehh… HEI'KK! HEE'KKH! Heh-Heh-Heh-HEEEIII'KKK! Uhh… I hate… Heh… HEI'K! Ugh… I hate sneezing! HEH-HEEIII'KGHHUH!" Ivy wailed between sneezes, illustrating her point as she made it. After another bout of pitiful nose-rubbing, the young woman tugged at the metal collar around her neck in irritation. Although they didn't get along, Ivy and Owen were stuck together until they could find a way to remove the highly explosive collars that were locked around each other their necks.

Until roughly a month ago, both Ivy and Owen were slaves, waiting to be sold off to potential buyers. Just like every other slave in the wasteland of what was once the United States of America some 200 years ago, they had been fitted with explosive collars by their captors. Usually, slave collars were connected to remote detonators so slavers could execute prisoners if they tried to escape, but theirs were different. Ivy and Owen's collars were linked to each other via radio communication. Essentially, if they ever got more than a mile apart from each other, both of their collars would explode. Both of them were very thankful to have been freed, but unfortunately they weren't entirely free just yet.

Ivy groaned, lifting her rifle up and holding it with both hands. She turned her head back slightly and frowned at Owen over her shoulder.

"And don’t make fun of me! I do all the fighting, so you owe me your life!"

A crashing sound rang out down the corridor, starting both of them. While Owen simply jumped a little, Ivy completely lost herself. She squealed and ran behind Owen to take cover. Owen groaned as the fearful young woman peeked over his shoulder.

"What would I ever do without you?" he droned, his voice completely flat and emotionless. Ivy whimpered for a second and then stood up again. She was about to suggest that they actually head back and leave the vault, but the heavy, dusty air started to bother her again.

"Heh… Ehh…" Ivy's wide, snub nose flared as it started to tickle, and she reached up a pale finger to rub under it. "Heeh!" She squeaked a little as her breath hitched, about to sneeze.

"HEEII'KK! Heh! HEEE'KK! Heh-Heh… HEIII'KKK! HEH! HEE-HEIII'KKK! Uhh…" Ivy sniffed and rubbed her nose between sneezes, but nothing she did could stop her fit until it had run its course on its own. While she was busy sneezing, Owen had silently walked around behind her again and was not pushing her forward slowly but steadily. Ivy slid deeper into the vault, too occupied with rubbing her itchy, tickly nose to even notice that she was gliding across the metal floor under Owen's power.

By the time Ivy noticed that anything was happening, they had already reached Vault 9's diner. It was an average-sized room where the vault dwellers would go to eat, so hopefully it still had some food they could scavenge. At the very least, the bar stools around the counter were still intact, so Ivy and Owen sat themselves down to rest and plan. Ivy removed her gray combat helmet, revealing her short, messy platinum-blonde hair that had previously been completely hidden under it. Her hair remained plastered to her head until she ran her hands through it, spiking it up slightly.

"Ugh, now what do we do?" Ivy said in a slightly stuffed-up voice. She pulled a tissue out of her pack and buried her sneezed-out nose in it. Next to her, Owen drew his hunting revolver and checked the cylinder. While it was still a pistol, the weapon was enormous, almost too large for Owen to handle. It was, however, extremely powerful, so he usually didn't fire it at all unless Ivy's weapons failed, which surprisingly was not as often as he thought.

"You probably want to go home, relatively speaking, but I want to find out what happened here. Every vault has a story behind it, you know? I'm not going to leave until I find out what this place's story is."

"Heh! HEII'KK! Uhh…" Ivy sneezed into her tissue before replying. "That actually sounds interesting," she said, perking up a little. Owen raised an eyebrow and leaned toward her.

"You really want to figure this place out? You sure?"

"HEEE'KKGH! Uhh… Yes."

"But it might be…"

"Might be what?"

Owen remained silent for a second, leaning closer to Ivy. The naïve young woman leaned closer to him in return. The silence continued, with Ivy staring curiously at her companion.

"SCARY!" Owen suddenly bellowed, waving his arms out to the side and nearly lunging at forward. Ivy screamed and fell out of her chair. She immediately curled up into a ball on the floor. Owen stood up, a look of very, very slight amusement on his face.

"Now come on. We don't want to be stuck down here if anything bad happens."

Ivy and Owen continued down one of Vault 9's long corridors, both of them growing tired of it. It had been what felt like hours since they entered, and they still hadn't found anything useful.

"This place is like a giant maze," A stuffy Ivy said, holding her index finger under her nose to protect her tickly nostrils from the dusty air. She had drooped over again, and was now dragging her rifle on the ground as she walked.

"Maybe that's the point," Owen said, having an epiphany. He glanced around, hoping to find some sort of landmark that they could use to get their bearings. Unfortunately for them, vault corridors were almost entirely identical. There were absolutely no identifying markings, so it was very easy to get lost. However, after only a few more minutes of walking, Owen saw a door that they hadn't gone through yet. He quickly jogged up to it, Ivy slowly dragging herself along behind him.

The door opened automatically as Owen approached it, just as all Vault doors were supposed to. He turned his head to look around inside the room, but Ivy suddenly filled the doorway, blocking his view. Her arms hung limp at her sides, her rifle clattering to the floor. Owen tried to look around her, but Ivy wouldn't be moved.

"Oh my god…" Ivy said slowly, her voice dripping with repressed joy. Owen raised an eyebrow.

"It's a bed. It's a real live bed!"

"It's not alive."

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! A bed!"

Ivy ran into the room and dove onto the bed, rolling and snuggling around in it until it was a complete mess. However, in her excitement she hadn't noticed the huge cloud of dust that exploded out of the 200-year-old mattress when she landed on it. After enough of the dust was sucked up into her nose, it didn't take Ivy long to experience the effects.

"Heh… Oh no… Heeh! HEEII'KK! Noo! HEEH! Heh-Heh-Heh-HEEEII'KKK!"

Ivy managed to stop sneezing just long enough to start rubbing her nose, but once she got going, she couldn't stop. She vigorously slid her index finger back and forth under her nose, nearly rubbing it right off of her face.

"Dammit! No! HEEE'KK!" Ivy moaned, lamenting her inability to use the first real bed she had seen in, well, ever. Generally the people of the wasteland only ever slept in beds if they were born in vaults or if they lived in one of the few stable settlements on the surface. Owen and Ivy were neither, and as such they had spent their entire lives sleeping on makeshift bedding. Although he wouldn't admit it, Owen was fairly disappointed too. Even though he wasn't allergic to dust, he probably wouldn't have been able to sleep on such a decrepit bed either. He pulled the still-sneezing Ivy from the room, gathering up her assault rifle, and guiding her down the corridors toward another door. Owen spent a few minutes fiddling with the lock before it finally opened.

The next room was completely different. It was the same size, and it was obviously still intended to be a bedroom, but its furniture created a completely different environment. The bed was shoved into a back corner to make room for what looked like hundreds of firearms and suits of combat armor. Both Owen and Ivy stared in wonder at the personal armory they had discovered, only starting to walk inside after looking it over for at least a minute straight.

Strangely, neither of them paid any attention to the guns that lined the walls. Obviously they would scavenge the ammunition and any weapons that they wanted, but each of them had something in particular that caught their eye. Owen approached the small computer terminal next to the door, sitting down in front of it and starting to work on hacking it. Computers such as that one always helped to tell a vault's story, so Owen wanted to uncover any information it might have held. Ivy walked across the room to the farthest wall, staring almost unblinkingly at a huge suit of pristine armor.

T-51b Power Armor. Ivy had never seen a suit of it before in person, but she would recognize it anywhere. Before the war that ended the world, T-51b was the most advanced suit of armor on the planet. Its wearer could practically stand alone against an army. A great many suits had survived the war, but despite that they were incredibly difficult to find. The vast majority of them had been claimed by the technophiliacs that were the Brotherhood of Steel, and those that remained were next to impossible to procure.

Ivy approached the armor stand and removed the helmet. She tried to put it on, but it got stuck half way, unable to fit around her explosive collar. Feeling yet another urge to sneeze, Ivy yanked the helmet off and sneezed a forceful "HEEII'KK!" into the open air in front of her. She sighed contentedly, glad that she didn't end up defiling the inside of the helmet with a sneeze, but the rest of the armor intrigued her.

Owen had finished hacking the personal computer, and now he was scrolling through the various messages that filled its memory. The first few messages were mundane, if a little bit strange, but that was likely due to the insane amount of firepower crammed into the room. According to these messages, the weapons and armor had all been there since the day the vault opened. The messages from the other vault dwellers were usually about random everyday concerns, but a few asked why this particular citizen owned so many weapons.

Many messages later, the subject matter was becoming almost manic. Instead of just asking about the weapons, some of the other vault dwellers started asking if they could have some for themselves. Most of them justified this desire with self-defense, but eventually, revenge became a motive. By the time Owen reached the last message, every single resident of Vault 9 wanted to borrow a gun specifically to kill someone else that lived there. Many of them were even threatening to break in. That was when he noticed the skeleton in the corner of the room.

One final message remained. It was from Vault 9's overseer, and from the looks of things, this resident wasn't supposed to have read it. Owen simply concluded that in his final days, the man decided to hack into the overseer's computer from his own to get some answers. After reading the message, everything became clear. Vault 9 was filled entirely with people with histories of violence. They were all well-adjusted to society, but at some point or another, each and every one had a recorded violent outburst. All of them except for one; the resident of this room. Allegedly he was one of the most morally sound candidates for any vault anywhere. And his room was the armory for one of the most violent vaults in the country. He could easily have loaded up with all the equipment he had in his room and put an end to the fighting, but he didn't want to kill anyone, and he didn't want any of the other vault dwellers to kill either, so he locked himself and his weapons away forever.

Owen slammed his fist down on the desk, making the terminal jump slightly. Every vault was the same. They were never meant to save anyone; only to conduct strange social experiments on the remains of human kind. Owen sighed, shaking his head. What was done was done, and honestly, the human race had messed itself up on its own, so how much could he really blame the vaults?

"O-Owen? A little help?"

Owen's concentration was broken as Ivy finally spoke. He turned around in his chair and saw Ivy's head sticking out of a huge suit of armor. Owen raised an eyebrow, impressed.

"T-51b. That's pretty cool."

"B-but… I'm stuck."

"What!?"

"The power source is dead. I can't move!"

"How did you even get in there then?"

"I don't know! Just help me get out!"

Owen approached Ivy, seeing that her body was truly frozen inside the armor. It was supposed to assist movement with its own powered joints and limbs, but if the power was out, it was stuck in place. He was confused as to how Ivy put it on with no power, but that was a question for after she was free of it.

"W-wait… Heh… Heh-Heh-Heh!" Ivy's head was the only part of her body that could still move, and it was starting to tip back as she built up to a sneeze. Owen stopped.

"HEH! HEEH!"

Owen started to step backwards. He had a feeling something bad would happen.

"HEEEIIII'KKK!!!"

Ivy's head shot forward as she sneezed, and then the entire suit of armor started to tip forward. She couldn't move it voluntarily, but apparently the forward force of her sneeze was just barely enough to knock it over. Ivy screamed as she crashed to the ground, landing face-first on the metal floor. However, as the suit of armor hit the ground, it suddenly came to life. Its motors started to whir, and Ivy's previously solid joints began to unlock. She stood up, her movement quick and fluid.

"Whoa, it works now!" Ivy said, stating the obvious. She triumphantly put her hands on her hips. Owen took another step back and raised an eyebrow. He was used to having to look up at Ivy, but with the armor, she was effectively nine feet tall.

"Awesome. Could you do me a favor? Smash that computer. It's making me angry."

Ivy nodded and took a step forward, but she quickly stopped. She extended the pointer finger of her right hand and started to raise it up to her face.

"One second. My nose itches."

Not truly knowing the armor's strength and speed, Ivy punched herself in the face.

---

And there you have it!

I hope you liked it, Enkidom! It was a lot of fun to write, so hopefully you had just as much fun reading it!

[Icee]

<3 <3 <3 <3

[a red nine]

You always manage to invent such fun characters. I still love the end, it was just perfect and hilarious, the icing to Ivy's derpy cake. I would have cracked up if my parents weren't nearby! Keep writing!

[Enkidom]

Thank you very much indeed, I absolutely loved it - and the humour in particular was very "Fallout". And I'm absolutely delighted you drew me again, I've always really enjoyed your Secret Santa stories! LOL...I want Ivy as a playable companion now, how are you at coding for the PS3 Blah-San?! Not quite as competent as my favourites, Charon and Veronica, but I wouldn't stop laughing (or finding the dustiest places in post-apocalyptia) for the entire game.

[Blah!?]

I'm so glad you like it!

I've actually never made a mod for Fallout before, but now that you mention it, I wouldn't be entirely opposed to trying. However, with the way mods work, it would unfortunately only be compatible with the PC version, since I don't know of any ways to install mods on the Xbox 360 or PS3.

It'll be easy to make a companion mod that adds an NPC that looks like Ivy, but everything else is an entirely different matter. I could write all kinds of dialog for her, but it might get weird after a little while of her sneezing with no animation to go with it. She'd just kinda be standing there, and suddenly sneeze as if it was another line of dialog.

I would also probably want to get some kind of voice acting for her...

And possibly a little Vault 9 quest where you recruit her... (Even though there is no Vault 9 in Fallout canon so far.)

Definitely something to think about.

[webmeistro]

That was cute! Nicely written.

As for mods, reading it make we want to code 'allergy to dust' as a negative perk; when exploring a vault, you sneeze every so often, making the screen go blank. During combat, adrenaline makes it much less likely, but it still happens. The chem 'antihistamines' negates this, at a cost of -2 INT and PER...

[webmeistro]

Wait, here's an even better idea... Vault 22!!! Clouds of pollen filling the air, taking the explorer by surprise...

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_22

[NoV]

Great story Blah-san The addition of sneezing is the only thing that could have made Fallout any better - love those games!