Whenever There was a party, I like to be on time. It was a sort of standard for me, to always be on time, if not early, to anything I needed to attend. Whether it be lunch, class, or any other event.
Anyway, I arrived into Beths room, where we were having the party, just before it started, and I realized that all of my friends was already waiting for me to arrive.
"Well, I'm here, so who's ready to party?" I said, with a grin on my face. This lead to the entire room letting off a huge cheer, with Max yelling "Let's party!"
1 Hour later
As we continued on into the party, we started to exchange stories about our jobs, whether it be how fun it could be at times, or unique experiences. Of course, I, Max and Lisa kept the whole armory story to ourselves, since we figured it would be more trouble to tell them to keep it a secret.
However, during a story about when Sarah was dissecting a radroach, another friend of our's, Lizzy, comes bursting in. "Hey Lizzy, I thought you were too busy to attend the party." Max said. Lizzy gave Max a quick look before she addresses the rest of the group. "Guys, we have a problem, the overseer has issued a search of everyone's rooms and is supposedly cracking down on 'rebels'" she says seriously. Lizzy was the kind of girl who could find just about anything while being stealthy, so it didn't surprise me that she found out about this.
What did surprise me though was the crack down. I was wondering why the overseer was doing this, but then I remembered that he's always paranoid and that Max and Lisa broke into the armory yesterday. "So...how does this affect us?" Chris said. "It affects us because he's already listing off 'suspects' who he thinks are rebels." Lizzy said. This shocked us into silence, partly at the fact that the overseer is accusing people of being rebels, and partily in thought of who it could be.
Max eventually broke the silence by asking "Well, who's on the list?" This lead to Lizzy telling us about who was being listed as suspect. In all, 74 of the Vault's 611 residents were suspects, including me, Lisa, and Liam and our families.
"Wh-what do we do?" Lisa said, stammering and shaking with nervousness. I looked up and asked Lizzy "When does the search start?"
"It already has, they're going to be searching level by level. At the moment, they've already searched residential levels ten through seven, and they should be working on six at the moment." She said, a look of nervousness on her face.
I was quickly trying to think up a plan and after a minute, I had one together, or at least the beginning of one. "Alright guys, listen up." I said, getting everyone's attention. "Everyone lives on levels two through four, correct?" Everyone nodded. "Good, I want you all to get to your rooms and pack anything you need, meet me at my room in twenty minutes, alright?" More nods, now more hopeful and determined. "Good, let's get going!"
As everyone started to walk away, I went over to Max and whispered "Make sure you get the gear you stole from the armory. Use a wheeled cart if you have to."
Max nodded as ran out the door, after everyone else, except for Chris and Beth, who was helping Chris pack up. "I'll see you soon." I said. As I left, I saw a look of indecision on Beths face before she finally says "I'll see you, and be safe." With a nod, I turn around and head toward my room, leaving them behind.
23 Minutes after party
"So, everyone got what they wanted?" I asked, looking at my group of assembled friends. Everyone except Max had arrived by now with their possessions and some with things from their jobs. Roy had brought his combat shotgun and 4 drums of 12 shotgun shells. Sarah, John, and Beth had brought their scientific discoveries and records. Sarah and John also brought some medical supplies and Sarah's German Shepard, Fury. In addition, Beth brought some books and holotapes she thought would be useful, and Lisa brought 4 spare pip-boys, as well as a large repair/maintenance kit for them.
"Yeah but, where's Max and Lizzy?" Chris asked.
Before anyone could say anything, Max burst through the doors, pushing a cart full of his own possessions and the armory loot. Before anyone could ask why he had all of this, Max said "I figured that since we might be in for a fight, we might as well bring the big guns."
While I and Lisa knew that he was slightly lying and hiding the full truth, everyone else either seemed to agree or were still too shocked to argue.
"Alright everyone, we'll wait for Lizzy, then figure out what to do from here." I said, with everyone nodding or grunting in agreement. As we waited for Lizzy, I decided to check my personal projects I worked on, the Mister Gutsy still didn't have any weapons, it would still be useful as a scout, among other things. However, the helmet, which I decided to name the 'Combat Tactical Helmet', or CTM for short, was all finished, and I had the V.A.T.S system on the hard drive downloaded into my pip-boy before giving it to the rest to download as well. Meanwhile, I established a network link between my pip-boy and helmet. So basically, any seeable systems in the pip-boy, like V.A.T.S, it's map, inventory management, and body condition, would pop up on the bullet-proof glass.
I decided to start packing my things into one of the survivalist packs instead of the much smaller Vault backpacks or a bag. I packed a couple of spare Vault suits, my family pictures, my mini-terminal, which I've decided to start called a laptop for short, a couple of manuals and books, some parts and tools that I figured would be more rare and valuable, several fusion cores and batteries to keep objects powered, and couple of mini-solar generators.
I had just slung my crossbow and bag of bolts over my shoulder when Lucy entered the room, pale and full of fear. "Is everything ok Lizzy?" Roy asked, concern in his voice.
"N-no it's not, th-the vault door, it's op-open." She said quietly. We looked at each other and Max was about to say something, when Lizzy talked again, slightly more calm "They let in a group of rough looking, dirty people from outside. I'm not too sure who they are, but I heard the Security Chief mumble something about Mercenaries.".
We were speechless for a few seconds, until Chris said "Alright, we definitely have to get out of here. Now does anyone have any ideas as to where we could go?" John immediately suggested leaving now, but we decided against it. After all, we weren't nowhere near ready to leave the vault. Plus, there would likely be guards we'd have to deal with.
After a bit more thinking, I remembered somewhere. "Hey, what about the trash room? It isn't where people would live, and it's on the 10th level, which has already been swept through by security."
Everyone thought about it for a second, and then agread. After making sure the cameras were frozen, thanks to Lisa, I activated the mister Gutsy, and we all went down the elevator. Luckily, we met no residents or security along the way, and we made it to the junk room in without being seen. After we settled in, while John and Chris barricaded the doors and Lisa set up an area to observe the vault from the cameras, the rest of us settled down or started looking for anything useful in the junk.
It mostly was, as implied, junk, but Roy managed to find a nice machete and Beth a box of matches, both of which would be useful.
3 Hours later
It was about 11:30 P.M when we heard the announcement on the Vault's broadcast system. Apparently all of us were wanted now, which would make things harder for us to leave the Vault, which we all agreed that it was the only option left.
We all huddled around as Chris and I told everyone the plan that we had come up with. From what Lisa had found on the cameras and data she's been able to hack into, there's a small, hidden garage near the entrance with a couple of jeeps in it. What we would do is launch a series of raids on the armory,clinic, and cafeteria for supplies at midnight by using the vents. Either once that has finished, or no word has been received from one of the raiding parties by 1:00, then we head to the elevator to the top level, and get into the garage.
Sarah, John, and Roy would be raiding the clinic, Beth and Lizzy the cafeteria, and me, Chris, and Max would go for the armory. Alice would be staying behind to watch the cameras and cause distractions if need be. Each group would have a weapon just in case, with the armory group being the most well armed with the combat rifle, a 10mm pistol, and my crossbow. After we gave each person a walkie-talkie and the right frequencies to use, we set off to cause some chaos.