This is the third part of the Fallout 3 fan fiction, Vault Dweller's Diary. If you haven't been following along, I suggest clicking the link on the right-hand side (Vault Dweller's Diary) and reading the introduction or the first part (Monday, August 20th, 2277). If you have been following, click below to read!
I’m not quite sure what to write here. I don’t know who to believe. Or what to believe. I’m not even entirely sure what’s happened in the past day, but I’ll do my best to put it down here. Maybe it’ll help me clear my head a bit.
I went down to Moriarty’s Saloon last night, like I said, and asked around. There was something standing behind the counter, looked like something right out of an old zombie flick. I have to be honest, I froze in the doorway for a solid two minutes. I just couldn’t take my eyes off of it… off of him. I have to stop doing that.
Its… his name’s Gob. He’s a Ghoul (apparently, Ghouls were once human, but the radiation mutated them to look like… well, like zombies). I did my best to cordial and polite, but I kept trying not to vomit all over him. I think he could tell, but he seemed to appreciate the effort I was putting in. He’s nice, probably one of the only nice ones in town. Before I could ask him about my dad, though, someone over in the corner of the saloon called me over. He was wearing some pre-war suit, white with pinstripes, and these thick-rimmed glasses. He had this shady hat pulled down over his eyes when he called me over.
I walked over and sat down next to the man, who introduced himself as Mister Burke. I started to ask about my dad, but he cut me off and started talking about the bomb in the center of town. Said he wants me to blow it up… blow up this town! He offered me an abundance of caps, but I told him to go fuck himself. There’s no way I’m killing all of these people. They may be crazy, but they’re human beings.
I stalked away from Burke, making sure to keep one eye on him, when the whore that had been in the corner practically smacked into me. Said she liked how I’d been nice to Gob, and introduced herself as Nova. I think she wanted me to offer to pay her for a night, but I’m not that desperate. I don’t know what diseases she has, for nuke’s sake. In any case, I finally got to ask her about Dad, and she got all misty-eyed, talking about “a handsome guy like that.” I politely asked her to knock off the bullshit and just give me some straight-shooting. She must have liked that, because she slipped me the password to Moriarty’s terminal.
I hung around and had a couple of beers, waiting for Moriarty to vacate the back room. Sure enough, he walked out about an hour later, smacked the Ghoul on the back of the head, accosted him for something, then stormed out of the bar. Sensing my chance, I slipped back and typed in the password (it’s “lotsacaps,” what a greedy, illiterate bastard). Several files came up on the terminal, so I browsed through them. There’s a lot of dirt on the townsfolk in here, including something about some ex-Raider named Jericho supposedly raping the nice girl from down at the Brass Lantern. I may have to talk to him about that later.
After a couple of minutes, I stumbled across a file that mentioned my dad… by name! Moriarty claims Dad’s been here before, and that I was with him, though I was just a baby. There’s no way this can be true, I thought, my dad and I were born in the Vault. Said something about some Brotherhood of Steel, too; I still haven’t found out anything more about them.
Right about then, I could have killed someone, so I stormed out of the bar, snapping at some woman who was trying to ask me for help. I found Moriarty standing just outside, staring out across the town with this wistful look in his eye. I couldn’t believe that asshole. I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around, demanded to know what he knew about my dad. At first he played dumb, but then he looked at me closer and decided that he did know my dad. He told me all the same things that had been in that computer file, said he figured I must be 19 by now. He laughed when I insisted my father and I were born in a Vault, said my dad had gotten in there to protect me. I damn near threw him over the railing. I instead settled for laying him out and stalking off.
I ended up out in the Wasteland. I needed to get away from the nutjobs in that town. I spent the night hunkered down between a couple of rocks. I woke up, once, because I heard some scuffling off to my left. Something that looked like a giant naked mole rat was tussling with some Raider; the mole rat won. I just slid deeper between the rocks and shut my eyes, tried not to listen to the sounds of the mole rat eating that man’s corpse.
This morning, I scavenged what I could from the Raider’s mostly devoured body. His weapon was in decent condition, and he had a little ammo on him. It’s a fairly solid rifle. I think I recognize it from the newsreels, this is one of the rifles that the Chinese soldiers always carried in those films. I didn’t need it on the walk back to town, but it felt good in my hands. Comforting.
When I got back into town, I went right up to Moira’s place and asked to borrow some tools from her. She wanted to know why, but I didn’t tell her. She seems to think the bomb won’t ever blow up, and that’d it be mean to the Church of Atom (that’s what the crazies call themselves) to disarm it. She lent me the tools anyway, so I went down and opened up that bomb.
I must be crazy. I don’t know how I survived. That thing should have gone off in my face, for all I know about explosives. But somehow, I managed to unhook the thing, disarm it for good. Even if Burke were to plant that pulse charge himself, that thing wouldn’t go up. I took Moira her tools back, and went off to find Simms.
Simms didn’t even seem to know about me knocking Moriarty out the night before. I figure Moriarty doesn’t trust Simms more than he trusts anyone else in town. I told Simms what I’d done, and he was overjoyed. He handed me a bag full of bottle caps, and invited me to move into the empty house in town. He gave me a little piece of paper with “DEAD” scrawled across the top. I think he meant “deed,” because the rest of it looks like a title deed (albeit written by a drunk three-year-old with a box of crayons). I thanked him, then told him about Burke, and what Burke had wanted me to do to the town. Simms’ smile disappeared as I told him, and he grabbed me by the arm and started pulling me back to Moriarty’s. Muttered something about “Wasteland justice.”
When we got in there, Simms ran right up to Burke, pulling out his rifle as he did so. He announced clearly, to the whole bar, that he knew what Burke was up to and that Burke would have to follow him to the town jail. Burke smoothly denied everything, said there’d been a miscommunication, but Simms wasn’t having any of it. Burke started to get angry, he called us “knuckle-draggers.” Simms insisted further. Finally, Burke gave in and stood up as Simms turned to lead him out.
I still have nightmares about the next part. Before I could do anything, Burke pulled a silenced pistol out from under his jacket. I called out to Simms and lifted my own rifle, but it was too late. Burke squeezed off a shot, right into the back of Simms’ head.
I don’t remember the next part clearly, except seeing a haze of red. There was the sound of silenced gunfire, and the sound of an automatic weapon. I felt pressure in bursts against my shoulder, and felt something hot brush my cheek. When I came to, I looked around. Everyone in the bar had ducked behind something; Nova was behind the door in her room, Gob was behind the bar, that girl that wanted help had thrown a table down to act as a shield. I felt something wet dripping down my face. I brushed two fingers against it; they came away with blood. I turned back to look at Burke.
His chest looked like it was made of hamburger. The gun had fallen out of his hand onto the floor, his glasses were crooked, and his hat had slumped down over half of his face. I lifted the hat to see what it was hiding. His face was contorted into a look of shock and agony. I looked down at my rifle; the barrel was still a little red. I pulled out the magazine, to discover that it was empty. I had unloaded the entirety of my mag into Burke’s chest.
The events that transpired came rushing back to me then, and I remembered Simms. I rushed over to see if he was okay; obviously, he wasn’t. There was only a small, cap-sized hole in the back of his head, but most of his face was gone. I almost lost what little food was in my stomach at the sight. Gob came out from behind the bar, helped me up. He said he’d seen what had happened, that he’d vouch for me. He told me not to worry, that no one would blame me for either killing. I was barely listening. I wasn’t concerned with that. He told me to go back to the common house, get some rest. I remember dumbly lifting my house key, and muttering, “I have a house. I live here now. Simms gave me a house.”
I don’t know how I got home tonight. I found myself sitting on a bed in my new, bare house. There’s a Mister Handy floating around, calls himself my butler. Sounds British. Don’t care. I’m so tired, but I can’t sleep. Maybe I’ll lay here a while longer, see if it helps. That’s all for now.
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