Vault 115

Chapter 17 - Escape

Melanie stumbled into the corner and threw up, her limbs numb. She shot John the dirtiest glare she could muster, but decided to beat his ass for it later. She did, however, elbow him as hard as she could in the stomach when he brushed past her.

Everyone set to work, and extremely fast. Reggie and Ciara were pressed against the door in identical positions, grinning determined, adrenaline-fueled grins at each other. Sam stayed invisible, working on getting the car up. Michael sprinted to the second floor and began working on the door. John just paced, clicking and chirping into every dark corner and empty lab. There were a few people downstairs, but didn't seem to know they were there.

Melanie remembered her job. She teleported away, as far as she could. All the guards were at the lab, so she went to the storage room on the lower floor. There was plenty of food- all canned goods. Meat, fruits, vegetables, soups, you name it. All canned.

'I wonder...' she thought to herself, placing a hand on the stacks of food and concentrating. With a quiet pop they disappeared, hopefully back to the lab. She found a bin full of oxygen tanks and Rad-Suits. Teleported those back too. She found two enormous tankers of water. Those went back too. Finally, she focused herself and teleported to the lab as well.

Everyone was making good progress. She began loading the vehicle's storage space with the goods she'd retrieved. These were good supplies. They'd be able to survive for months off of these. She looked around and then decided that maybe, if there were people out there, they might be just as powerful. She teleported away once more and had just enough juice to get herself back with a pile of guns and a few first aid kits.

Michael called down from below. "THE DOOR IS OPENING! GET READY!" Melanie took a deep breath. Let's do this.
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Michael took a second and glanced down at the scene before him. It was almost slow motion, the way things were unfolding. Hearing his call, everyone moved from their respective positions and gunned straight for the vehicle that Sam picked out. Which was a pretty good one.

It was large, and wide. It would look a bit unwieldy if it wasn't for the defensive looking structure to it all. Spikes lined the bottom of the trailer-like vehicle, and black pads lined the outer walls. Large metal bars sat on the top of it, and a cage in the front. It looked like it would survive almost anything. And it was big- enough room for the six of us maybe.

Michael finally moved, leaving the room toward the landing, then glancing down at a few boxes as he had an idea. If he had to run all the way around this landing and down the stairs he would never make it in time. He crawled onto the fencing for the platform, then jumped as he concentrated. A box suddenly flew up,  catching him partway down. He pushed off of the box, as another came up. He used these as a staircase, halfway down landing on a large hummer vehicle before beginning the process again. He got to the vehicle last, but he got there.

Reggie was out stretching his hand through the door, everyone else already having climbed into the trailer.

A large groan caught his attention just as his arm gripped Reggie's. He was pulled into the trailer as many thing happened at once. Screaming of 'Go go go!' from many sides, an army storming in from the vault to try to stop the kids, Reggie slamming the door shut and bracing against it, loud sounds as if bullets were being shot at the vehicle. Everyone flinched and got down, but soon it was evident that there were no bullets flying around inside the vehicle, the outer padding being bulletproof.

Michael glanced over to Sam, watching her floor the gas with two different pedals, flipping three switches, turning two knobs. The contraption looked insane and suddenly Michael was glad the vault put him in medical instead of robotics. Then he remembered where they were going, and was glad once more that he was a doctor since no one else in this truck was.
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Melanie grinned and watched out of the back window, Ciara's hand clutched tightly in her own, as they sped out the door and left the armies in the dust. It was very bright outside, that was the first thing Melanie noticed. It was also extremely colorful, all around her she saw bright orange in the dirt and yellow in the sun and blue in the sky. This felt right. It felt like the blindfold had been taken off and they were finally free to sense the world as it was meant to be. She looked around to everyone's smiling, determined faces and thought, for the first time in a long time, "Hey, maybe we'll be okay."