Fallout: Wasteland Wanderers

Chapter 1: Leaving the Vault

Isaac hasn't felt pure sunshine on his face before. It wasn't like standing next to the radiator back in the vault or heating up food on the stove. This warmth was so calming to him. For the first couple seconds as he walked off the elevator platform of his vault, Isaac forgot about the world around him. As Isaac slowly opened his eyes again he saw the forestation around him, though it wasn't like any he read about. The once high rise trees were now deformed with fungi around it and the sound of his Geiger counter started to go off. Knowing that he was by radiation, Isaac quickly started to descend down the hill safely avoiding the irradiated areas by him. While making his way down Isaac slips on a root and begins to tumble the rest of the way down the hill. His fall is only stopped when he hits a concrete wall at the end of the hill. Isaac groaning in pain starts to recollect himself. He dusts off the dirt on his vault 78 jumpsuit and starts to limp around the concrete wall to see what he ran into. His eyes travel up the buildings side and notices a Red Rocket sign at the top of the one story building. As curiosity gets the better of him, he enters the shop and sees everything inside crumbling or rotting away. Though the shop is filled with many broken objects, Isaac spots a door leading to the back storage room. He approaches and discovers the door is locked. After some kicking and ramming attempts, Isaac begins searching through the counter and debris to find something.

"Ah here we are, lets see how rusty I am."

Isaac holds up a bobby pin from a damaged purse he found and goes to the tool box behind the counter and gets a flat head screwdriver. Returning to the door Isaac begins picking the lock.

"Dang this was so much easier when I was just sneaking into the library after hours."

All of a sudden Isaac hears the satisfying click he needed and opens the door. He is greeted with a giant cockroach jumping into his face from the other side.

"AHHHHHH! GET IT OFF!!!!!"

Isaac struggles as he holds the roach away from his face. Tumbling and turning he reaches for anything with his left hand and grabs a stool. He whacks the roach off him and flips it over to bring down the flat side onto the roach itself. After hitting it once Isaac takes a step back with the stool and looks to make sure the roach isn't moving anymore. Upon seeing an antenna twitch, Isaac yells and slams the stool two more times for good measure. He leaves the stool on top of the dead radroach and slowly approaches the room again, cautious because of what just occurred. He peaks over and scans the room and sees it is a office and not a storage closet like he presumed. Taking a step forward things seem fine so far. He slowly canvases the office looking at the torn photos and empty file cabinets reaching the seat of the desk with the computer.

"Alright, let's see if I can't find anything from this."

Isaac boots up the computer but it is password protected. He sighs and thinks about the password while looking around the room. He spots a picture crooked from the rest and goes up to it and looks behind to find a slip of paper that says "GraftonMonster1234."

"Well we can't all be original. Let's see the goods."

Isaac views the files listed. "Employee Reports", "Shipment Dates", "Safe Lock".

"Safe Lock?"

Isaac looks around and doesn't see a safe anywhere near him. He takes a gamble and clicks the option. A safe can be heard opening, but Isaac still doesn't see it. Getting up he looks around the room and even moves the filing cabinet but doesn't find the safe. He finally leaves the office and sees a safe door open from under the counter. Approaching the safe Isaac sees the spoils of his efforts in the form of a 10mm pistol, a pouch of bottle caps, money, a pocket watch, and a holotape. Isaac grabs all the objects except for the pouch of bottle caps. He holds the holotape in his hand looking it over before inserting it into his wrist mounted computer or pip-boy. "Sweet Home How I Miss You" pops up as the title and the holotape begins to play.

"My name is David Miller and this is a message to my wife, if you are not her please do not continue to listen as this is a personal message to her and I don't know if I'll be alive before she gets it."

Upon hearing the request Isaac pauses the tape and looks at his pip boy for a second. He debates on whether to listen forward further as he knows there is a good chance both the people being referred to are already gone. Closing his eyes, Isaac prepares to press play but moves his finger towards the eject button. Isaac opens his eyes again and stores the holotape away.

"Who knows, maybe I'll run into one of them."

Isacc gathering his thoughts returns to scouring the abandoned Red Rocket shop. Finding no more than a couple water bottles, two cans of tuna and a flashlight all stored in a Nuka Cola themed satchel he found in the office. Isaac makes his way to the front door and stops to check his 10mm pistol. He ejects the magazine and sees there is only one round in the chamber. Sighing he puts the magazine back in and looks to his left to see a umbrella rack with a extended baton sitting with two umbrellas. He pulls it out and shakes some dirt off of it to see that it is a standard issue Vault-Tec baton. Examining it further he finds a button that when pressed fills the baton with electricity like a taser. Shrugging his shoulders Isaac states,

"Better than nothing"

and stores the baton away in his belt. He opens the front door and sees that the sun has started to set from its peak in the sky, meaning he only has a couple hours to find a secure place to sleep.

"Let's see what this wasteland has to offer"