Fallout 3: Radiation

G.O.A.T.

SIX YEARS LATER

"Different possibilities might offer different solutions..."

"What you're trying to do... It could be dangerous..."

"So I'm the Overseers daughter, so what? Like I get any kind of special treatment..."

"Boys and girls have different parts, right? And..."

"No, Mr. DeLoria, that is not correct. Tell me. Are you really that stupid?"

"Tell me, have you been experiencing any headaches lately?"

"Revelation 21:6. I am Alpha and Omega..."

Andromeda blinked, struggling to keep her eye open in the blinding light of the Retinoscope.

"As far as I can tell, you're a perfectly healthy 16-year-old girl," her father concluded, setting the Retinoscope down on the desk, having finished his examination of her. "So yes, you have to go to class to take your G.O.A.T. exam."

"Are you sure?" she asked, coughing. "I think I'm coming down with something."

They were in her father's office, her sitting on her father's desk and him standing in front of her. The walls were the same steel gray as everything else in the Vault except on ever surface hung either medical posters describing different parts of the body, or else light screens with x-ray photos tacked up for examination. She loved coming here. There was a certain warmth to this room that other places in the Vault lacked though, a certain warmth that she knew came from her father. She felt at home. 

She really was feeling nauseous today though.

She faked another coughing fit and her father gave her a stern look. Her coughs died.

"When I started studying medicine, one of the first things I learned was how to spot a kid playing sick to get out of taking a test," he told her before his voice softened. "You'll do fine. It's not so bad. Everyone had to take it when they're sixteen. I had to, you have to, and so does everyone else. And most everyone makes it through without a scratch."

She looked down at her feet, swinging them back and forth underneath her, barely scrapping the floor.

"But... but what if I fail?" she whispered.

"Oh, honey, you won't fail."

"You can't know that," she argued, shaking her head. "What if I do fail it? What if I'm the first person in the history of the test to fail it?"

Oh she could see the looks she would get already. 

'There's the girl who failed the G.O.A.T...'

'I'm glad she's not in my family...'

'She's such a disappointment...' 

"Sweetie, the test just helps you figure out what sort of job you'll have here in the Vault when you get older. They need people to fill the jobs so there's no way you can fail it, unless you don't complete it. 'Each is tested to determine their abilities, that they may work for the betterment of all Vault residence'. Sound familiar?"

She nodded. It was one of the things they learned in school. Everyone had to contribute to the Vaults well-being.

"You know what the Overseer says: 'We're born in the Vault. We die in the Vault'."

She looked up at her father's face. His beard had grown considerably, with more gray showing in his hair than ever before. Even his skin seemed tired, sagging in places and spotted in others.