Commonwealth Fall

Chapter Three: Out Of Time

A/N: As a side note, if you found out your best friend was hiding the fact that they were basically a Nazi their whole life, how would you react?

Sanctuary was actually a nice place. Quiet, peaceful. It was a series of pre-War houses on a small island. Hell, there was still an old, rusted Mr. Handy trimming the hedges of one house. As Blake stomped over to a small yellow house with what looked like a workbench and some other crafting stations, the old robot swivelled its sensors over to Blake. More specifically, his armour.

"Ah, good sir! Might I trouble you for a small task?" the robotic butler inquired energetically as he zoomed over to Blake. Blake, for his part, had a puzzled look behind the mask of his helmet. Preston looked confused as well, and Piper just looked intrigued by the functioning robot.

Blake recovered quickly, nodding a few times. "Sure, what do you need?"

The robot, Codsworth, simply requested that they check the local vault, Vault 111, for any sign of his previous owners, Nathan and Nora Hale. Blake had agreed, out of sympathy for the poor robot. He know personally that if someone had told him that his father was still possibly alive that he'd try to check as soon as possible. Piper had simply glared at him before walking off to work on helping Preston clear out some bloatflies.

It stung a little inside, being snubbed like that. But truly, it was deserved. Over seven years of lying to her about his past had built a bridge that had cracks at the bottom, and that armour was a rocket to the base. Now, he was worse off in her eyes than when he had gotten to Diamond City. Still, looking back on it, he was regretting it less and less. It was only a matter of time until she would have found out anyways, and the longer he had hid it, the more it likely would have hurt her when she did find out. If it was really as bad as it was now, it would have gotten worse the longer he had put it off.

Speaking of bad situations, Blake was stuck staring at a multi-ton steel door. And it was locked into place. From the look of it, the mechanical parts still functioned; it was only a matter of opening it. And to open it, he needed a Pip-Boy 3000. RobCo had a major hand in Vault-Tec's functionalities, inventing the Pip-Boy, providing them with terminals, and creating various control panels. It was possible that a portable terminal could be plugged into the control panel and open the door. It could be possible to hack the control panel of the Vault.

Then, without a second thought, Blake drew his pistol and slammed the grip down on the cover for the button. The cover shattered beneath the force, and then it was quite simple for him to just press the button. An alarm blared, and he could hear hydraulics whirring behind the door. For all the technological genius at RobCo, they weren't exactly the best at making their blueprints real. Case-in-point, the ease of breaking the button cover on the control panel.

Then the seal on the ancient Vault broke, and a massive hiss filled the room. Wind flew past him and into the cracks between the door and the walls. The door creaked loudly as it lumbered sideways, rolling while attached to the massive motor behind it. As soon as the door stopped moving, a walkway slid forward and clanged against the catwalk Blake was standing on. Everything fell silent shortly afterwards, the only sounds left were a slow dripping of water, some metal creaking, and a few radroaches clicking. The eerie silence of a vault was a sound of horror in the wasteland only matched by the roar of a nearby Deathclaw. The part about that which truly made it into some sort of Lovecraftian horror was the fact that an empty, soundless vault was actually a massive, darkened, horrific metal grave. Vault-Tec was not kind at all to the people who put their trust in the company.

Case-in-point, his dad's story of Vault 87, the home of the East Coast Super Mutants. Their skin was yellow, rather than the typical green from places such as Navarro and even his new homeland, The Commonwealth. Vault 87's inhabitants were subjected to the horrors of the pre-War Forced Evolutionary Virus. FEV was the cruellest way to die. It didn't induce actual death, but for most people, being subjected to the stuff was equivalent to death. Muscles would increase in mass, brain cells would die off, the face would contort into a permanent expression of anger, and physiological traits of differing genders would disappear. A normal person would forever be twisted into a mass of green skin, muscle, and stupidity.

Therefore, entering a vault was almost like a game. A sort of question to pose to oneself. What went horrifically wrong with this new vault?

Vault 111 was cold, even from just inside of the door's opening. A quick search of the area revealed a mass of old boxes, a pair of radroaches that rapidly ended up crunched underneath of a combat armoured boot, and a few skeletons. Two of which were scientist skeletons, and one of which had a Pip-Boy. Two minutes later, Blake was walking down a darkened corridor, his new Pip-Boy illuminating the walls and floor. Rust coated the walls and numerous radroaches scurried forwards to end up crushed underneath of his boot.

It was eerily silent, save for the clank of his armoured boots against the floor and the humming of some sort of machine further back in the Vault. The door to the left when he entered the vault had rusted shut, but the door to his right was an exit tunnel that he assumed would lead directly to the Overseer's office. Even though the door was latched shut, a bit of trickery using his Pip-Boy's wired interface opened the door easily. And colour him surprised, it was the Overseer's office. Aside from a skeleton behind the desk, a couple of stimpaks, and an old 10mm pistol with some ammo, the office was devoid of anything valuable.

The ammo, that could be used in what he had managed to sneak out of his dad's quarters before the incident. The stimpaks were always useful. Portable, localised medkits. Blake proceeded to remove the magazine that was also in the actual gun on the desk. Then he looked to his left and saw a cage with an open security gate. The cage didn't contain much, just a bit of extra ammunition for the pistol. That, and a freeze gun.

"I think I'm starting to figure out what this vault's experiment was." Blake muttered as he started trying to pick the lock. After about seven broken bobby pins, he did to the case as he had to the vault door's control panel. This proved to be less effective than before, only cracking the casing. Another two smacks to the case went by, and Blake simply resorted to shooting it open. Finally, the small hole created by the bullets he put into the side of the casing allowed him to reach a finger inside of the case and manually unlock it from the inside. Blake then proceeded to wrap that finger in his other hand until he regained feeling in it. The cold of the vault, combined with the cold of the case, was really not a good combination for avoidance of cryopathy.

Lacking anything else to do, Blake sat down at the terminal and deviated from his finger's reheating to click onto the entry marked "Cryolator" He skimmed it briefly, guessing that it was in reference to the gun in the case. Apparently the ammo would be very difficult to find. Making it himself would be another thing. A nice challenge, if Blake wasn't the second most incompetent chemist in The Commonwealth. Engineering was his specialty, electronics worked very well with him. Biology and chemistry were foreign areas for him, and he never cared much about learning in the first place.

Blake finally stood up, flexed his almost frozen finger, and walked back over to the case, swinging it open. The Cryolator was, in truth, very similar to the old plasma rifles that the Enclave would use. There was a mass of exposed wires and tubes, owing in part to its experimental design. Eight cells accompanied the device, all at full charge. Looking over the end of the gun, Blake decided that it was essentially, a flamer that shot ice. It was best not to waste the ammo.

The Cryolator and its ammo went into a Vault-Tec messenger bag he found in the Overseer's quarters. That finished, he started back off down the other hallway. Presumably, this hall would eventually lead to the living quarters. Blake hit the end of the hallway and found…something. It certainly wasn't living quarters, at least, not the normal kind.

The entire hallway was lined with cryostasis pods. And they all had flashing lights on the front. Red, flashing lights. And two of the pods were open. And there was a man on the floor in front of one of the open pod across from him. Blake immediately ran over to the man and tried to help him up. The man was soaked through, stiff, and gasping for breath. Even with treatment, he wouldn't make it out of the vault. Blake moved him into a sitting position against the empty pod. Kneeling down, he extended the needle on one of the stimpaks and jammed the thing into the man's right lung, giving him another ten minutes, at the most.

"What happened in here?" Blake asked, almost unable to comprehend that someone was still alive from before the war.

The man stirred slightly, and looked up. "The bastards…th-they k-k-killed my w-wife…" he muttered, pointing at the other cryopod, occupied by a dead woman who had a single bullet hole in her chest. Blake looked at the man sympathetically before he walked over and moved the body into a position next to the dying man.

The man pulled the corpse closer, intertwining his arms with her lifeless ones.

"Who did this to you and her?" Blake asked, sitting down on the other side of the man.

"B-bastard had a sc-sc-scar…like yours. H-he was b-bald…had a light b-beard…handgun. H-his voice was like g-gravel." The man breathed out slowly, dying faster. A small line of dark blood had started to trickle from his nose.

Blake's eyes hardened. Kellogg. That old merc had lived next door to him since he arrived. Kellogg had left about a month ago. "What else did the bastard do?"

The man's eyes glazed over. "He k-kidnapped my son, S-S-Shaun. P-please…f-find him and…tell him d-daddy loves him." With that, the last survivor of the Vault 111 Cryostasis Experiment closed his eyes and joined his wife in the cold embrace of the icy tomb they had thought would be their salvation when the world was set ablaze. Blake looked down at the man with utter sadness on his face. Kellogg was bad, but this was a new low. He looked at the man's closed eyes and nodded. "I promise…I won't stop looking until I find him."

With that, Blake stood up and walked back towards the vault's exit. The reason that a bastard like Kellogg had lived for so long is that nobody had been able to kill him. Then again, most people that tried had only cared about the money. Blake had a different reason now. This wasn't for money, or revenge. This was about a vow that he had made to a dying man. The vault door hissed shut behind him, sealing the place back up. He stepped back onto the elevator platform and began his ascent to the surface.

Had he spent his whole life underground, the light that stuck his eyes upon resurfacing would have been nearly blinding. Since he had lived on the surface for just over a decade, the light was just a minor annoyance. In truth, the vault door's elevator he was stood on had a magnificent view of the entirety of the Commonwealth. The skyscrapers of Boston stood tall in the distance, trees scattered about the open areas between the skyscrapers and him. The yellow and blue houses of Sanctuary sat there, just at the bottom of the hill. The Red Rocket on top of the gas station peeked out over another, more distant hill. Even though it was a massive expanse of death, destruction, and depression, The Commonwealth was a beautiful place. What he wouldn't give to see that for the first time.

Well, the only thing he wouldn't give was something recently shattered. He wondered shortly if he should just leave. Go northwest. Perhaps there was something left of upstate New York. Maybe Canada had survived the worst of the war; there wasn't exactly anything up there. Blake shook his head clear of those thoughts; he still had a bit of a life here in Boston. In The Commonwealth. His…home. It was actually a comforting thought. He still had a home here in the ruins of one of the great centres of innovation. Besides, he lived in the old baseball stadium, Fenway Park.

"I'm just stalling, aren't I?" Blake muttered to himself. With a sigh, he started back towards the path back down. After a pause in his walking, he turned back around and walked towards the short path down towards Sanctuary. He climbed down the cliff as quickly as possible, turning around and walking across the short bridge and into Sanctuary again. Preston, Sturges, the Longs, Mama Murphy, and Piper were all sitting in various chairs near the old workbench in front of the yellow house, just talking. Codsworth was still cutting the bushes in front of the Hale house.

Codsworth rotated around suddenly and started flying over towards him. "Sir, did you find anything?"

Everyone who had been sitting around suddenly turned around and looked at Blake. Not Codsworth, the one who had started talking, but Blake. He sighed, and walked over to Codsworth, trying to compose the words in his head. Blake just muttered a curse to himself and started talking. "Codsworth, Mr Hale is…in a better place. He joined his wife."

Codsworth looked as distraught as a floating robot could. "And…what about young Shaun?"

Blake's mine instantly flashed back to the promise he had made in the cryogenic stasis rooms. Well, now he had a short-term plan for life. Find Shaun, get him to Codsworth and a loving family, and then he'd go back out west. Maybe find some sort of life in the ruins of Detroit. They probably didn't look any worse than the day before the bombs fell. "Someone took him, Codsworth. But I'll find him. I gave Mr Hale that much of a promise."

Looking just past the old robot, he could see that just about every member of the group had an expression of either shock or disbelief on their faces. Codsworth was muttering words of gratitude, but Blake wasn't truly listening. He could see a large measure of respect on Preston's face, and a much lesser amount on Piper's. He muttered some form of a goodbye to Codsworth and walked back over to the group. Kellogg, he'd find the bastard and shoot him in the legs. Then the head, once he got what he needed. Really, he could just feel the questions coming before they were even asked.

"So, you're going to hunt down a two-hundred year old corpse?" The sarcasm stung a bit more than usual, considering that it came from Piper.

"The entire vault was a cryogenic storage facility. I talked with Mr Hale himself. If he was still alive from before the war, his son could be. I'm going to find him, I owe him that much." Blake was adamant. Besides, if Hale had seen Kellogg, then his son couldn't have been thawed out too long ago.

"Wait, he was alive before the war? So he was two hundred years old?" Piper looked astonished, almost disbelieving.

"He was. And before he, well, died, he told me who took his son. Do you remember Kellogg, the merc who lived up next to me in the upper stands?" Details were important, and Blake had talked about his neighbour often.

"Yeah, wait. You're saying that Kellogg took Hale's son?"

"Yes, I am. But he left Diamond City on business about a week ago. Maybe Nick can help us find him." In truth, that was easier said than done. Nick had disappeared a few weeks back on business. To find Hale's son, they would need to find Kellogg. To help them find Kellogg, they would need to find Nick. There was still some resentment between them because of the lies, but it would be easier than having to track a skilled mercenary across the wasteland alone. They went to start off to Diamond City, but they were stopped by a man in a colonial duster.

"I know you've got a job to do, but do you got a minute?" Preston looked weary, and actually a bit desperate.

"What do you need, Garvey?" Blake was curious as to what Preston wanted.

"I got word of a settlement asking for help from the Minutemen. I'm pretty sure I'm the last Minuteman, but I can't help out because I've got my hands full with the rest of the people from Quincy. Could you maybe go and help them out?" An offer to join the Minutemen, in essence. Perhaps he could help reunite the Commonwealth.

"What settlement needs help?"

"Tenpines Bluff. They're having trouble with a group of Raiders. If ya got the time, go help them out. Maybe they'd reconsider supporting the Minutemen." Hope. Just what the Commonwealth needed. A rebuilt Minutemen would provide a sense of hope.

"Alright Garvey, I'll do it. I'll set off right now, so that I'm not backtracking." Blake set off towards a settlement that needed help.

"Aren't you forgetting something, Mr. Enclave?" Piper sounded slightly mocking again. Blake turned around and looked back at his power armour. He shrugged and got into the suit. It sealed shut around him with a hiss, and he actually grinned to himself. This was working well for him. But then again, Piper. He sighed and stepped back out of the suit, turning to face her.

"Piper, I'm pretty sure there are no words for how badly I messed up. If there's anything I can do to help redeem myself, I'll do it." Blake just noted how dejected he sounded only after he said it.

"Well…you're doing a decent job already. But when we get back to Diamond City, I want your story. Without the lies. Tell me about how life was as the son of the Enclave." She sounded incredibly stubborn about this. Nothing outside of how she usually was.

"Alright Piper. But first, let's go help this settlement with their raider problem." With that, Blake pulled himself into his power armour and started off towards Tenpines Bluff. Piper followed shortly. Raiders were scumbags, and any chance to punch their heads in was good enough for both of them. Helping the settlers was an added bonus. So east it was. Towards Tenpines.

A/N 2: Don't expect constant updates. You've seen how long it took Chapter Three to come out. These chapters are starting to get long, and we have our start to the main story. As another side note, I'd be willing to create a game save with Autumn at the exit to Vault 111, with only his dad's pistol. It'll be modified, he'll have certain perks, and his SPECIAL will be set. S=2, P=4, E=3, C=8, I=8, A=5, L=5. Preset perks will be Gunslinger II, Gun Nut II, Armourer II, Science II, Locksmith II, Commando I, Mysterious Stranger I, Hacker I, Intimidation I, and Nuclear Physicist I.