User blog:Iggylord/The Man Out of Time (Part One: War Never Changes)

''War... war never changes. ''

''In the year 1945, my great-great grandfather, serving in the army, wondered when he'd get to go home to his wife, and the son he'd never seen. He got his wish, when the US ended The Second World War by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ''

''The World awaited Armageddon; instead, something miraculous happened. We began to use atomic energy not as a weapon, but as a nearly limitless source of power.''

''People enjoyed luxuries once thought the realm of science fiction. Domestic robots, fusion-powered cars, portable computers. But then, in the 21st century, people awoke from the American dream.''

''Years of consumption lead to shortages of every major resource. The entire world unraveled. Peace became a distant memory. ''

''It is now the year 2077. We stand on the brink of total war, and I am afraid. For myself, for my wife, and for my infant son - because if my time in the army taught me one thing: it's that war... war never changes....''

Chapter One
9:32 AM, Saturday the 23rd of October, 2077

Taylor Residence, Sanctuary Hills, Massachussets, U.S.A

"You're gonna knock 'em dead at the veteran's hall today, hon." Nora said, pecking me on the cheek, "Now move over, and stop hogging the mirror." There was a slight playful tone to her voice, but at the same time, it would probably be a terrible idea to keep her waiting. We hadn't been married for long, but I had expericed what she was like when she was impatient. I looked at my watch, and realized that, with my wife's patience, it was most probably best to not bother with shaving.

"All yours." I said, gesturing to the mirror as I took a step backwards, "But if you ask me, you don't need he makeup to look beautiful."

As I stepped out of the bathroom, and into the corridor, I was met with a cheery, "Good morning, Mr Taylor!" from Codsworth. "Your coffee, brewed to perfection at 197 degrees farenheit!"

"Black, with two sugars?" I asked him.

"Just how you like it, Mr Adrian!" The Mister Handy confirmed, passing me a cup full of the warm, brown liquid. As I raised it to my lips, Shaun, my infant son, erupted into tears from his bedroom.

"Not to worry, sir!" Said Codsworth, hovering off to the infant child, "I'll deal with it."

Nora approached me, watching Codsworth fly past her, and hush Shaun until the crying ceased.

"You know, I was nervous at first, but Codsworth is really good with Shaun." She said.

"Yeah, he sure gets him to sleep quickly. Either that or Codsworth just suffocated him." I joked. Nora gave me a rather foul look. Despite loving me dearly, she had always despised my dark sense of humor. Although, I will admit, it could get over the top at times. Before Nora could open her mouth to voice her complain, the doorbell rung.

"It's probably that salesman again. He's been asking for you every day, but you've always been working a case." She said, referencing to my work as a consulting detective, "You should probably just get it ot of the way."

I nodded, straightened my tie and suit jacket, and answered the door. A brown-haired man in a long, tan colored trench coat answered the door. His body language suggested that he didn't really want to be doing this, but the pay was good. His left wrist was slightly more muscular than his right, suggesting he was left-handed. My guess was proven correct when he reached up with the same hand to remove his hat.

"Good morning!" He said, stepping forwards, "Vault-Tec calling."

"The nuclear bunker company?" I asked.

"The very same!" He announced, with a fake cheeriness, "Thanks to your service to our fine country, you and your family have a guaranteed place in the new vault: Vault 111." As he said the vault's name, he made a gesture with his hand, as though unveiling some sort of revolutionary invention.

"Really? Well, I can't wait for the world to end in a nuclear holocaust." I joked.

"That's the spirit." The salesman said, slightly taken aback by my dark humor. It tended to have that effect on people. "Now, sir, if you could just tell me a few things..." He readied his pen in his left hand, and poised it above his clipboard, "Your name, please, sir?"

"Adrian Oliver Taylor." I said.

"And your wife's name?" He asked.

"Nora Bridget Taylor." Nora chimed in from behind me.

"Excellent!" He said, "And your son's?"

"Shaun William Taylor." I said.

"Look's like that's it. I'll just run this over tp the vault." The vault-tec rep said, as I shut the door behind him, shouting a cheery "good day!" to him.

"Thanks for that." Nora said, "I know that guy can be pretty draining."

"For you and Shaun," I said, pecking her on the lips, "No price is to high." From the other room, the sound of a aby's cries could be heard. "Speak of the devil..." I muttered, walking to my son's room.

I leaned over his cot, and picked him up.

"Hey there... it's okay, there's no need to cry, daddy's here..." I said nurturingly, setting the now silent infant down in his cot.

"So..." Said Nora's voice from behind me,  "How are the two most important men in my life doing? I was thinking, maybe this afternoon, we could go to the park."

"Willit be like that night in the park a year ago?" I joked.

"Very funny, Adrian." Nora said, sighing, "I don't want to get pregnant again." As she bent down to pick up Shaun, Codsworth began shouting from the living room.

"Mr Adrian, Mrs Nora, you should come and see this!" He said nervously.

As we came into the room, we were met with a horrified looking news presenter on the TV.

"...followed by... yes, followed by flashes. Blinding flashes." He said solemnly, "Sounds of explosions... we're... we're trying to get confirmation... but we seem to have lost contact with our affiliate stations. We do have... coming in... confirmed reports, I repeat, confirmed reports of nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania. My God."

Chapter Two
9:45 AM, Saturday the 23rd of October, 2077

Taylor Residence, Sanctuary Hills, Massachussets, U.S.A

The TV cut out, and displayed a "PLEASE STAND BY" message. For a second, silence spread across the house, until sirens suddenly sounded, and a loud, automated voice shouted, "Those eligibel for residence in Vault 111, please make your way to the vault."

"We need to get tothe vault, now!" I shouted to Nora, flinging the door open. The two of us frantically sprinted, Shaun in Nora's arms. There's something quite strange about running to a nuclear bunker with yiur wife and infant son, while hoping that communists don't drop nuclear warheads on you. It wasn't really a situation I expected to find myself in. Come to think of it, that's fairly normal compared to my current life. What I wouldn't give to go back to that time... never mind. I was telling you about the run to the vault. We were soon led onto a large, circular platform, that looked like an elavator of sorts. Far away, in the sky, a small black shape fell above the Boston skyline. It got closer, and closer, until the city was engulfed in a firey mushroom cloud.

"Lower the civilians!" Shouted one a Vault-Tec staff member. A large wall of flames was quickly making its way towards us. The elavator dropped just in time. As the doors above us shut, I could feel the heat coming from above. There was no way anyone could survive that.

"It's alright." I comforted Nora, wrapping my arms around her, "We're okay." A few wimpers and cries came from other people, as the elavator came to a halt. A staff member was waiting at the bottom.

"Everyone make your way up the stairs, and collect a vault-suit." He said. I did as instructed, and adorned a bright blue Vault 111 jumpsuit. It stuck tightly to my body, andm despite its tightness, was rather comfortable.

"Follow me," a staff member in a white lab coat told me and Nora, leading us to some sort of pods, "Just step on into the decontamination pods. We can go over everything in orientation." I wish that I hadn't climbed into the the pod, that I hadn't trusted Vault-Tec. But I merely obeyed, and climbed in, like a sheep following it's herd. And so, my last minutes of conciousness were spent hearing, "Decontamination process in 5, 4, 3, 2........"

Saturday the 1st of December, 2227

Vault 111, Massachusetts, U.S.A

I try to forget what happened now. I had awoke, still in the pod. As it turned out, I had been cryogenically suspended, not decontaminated. I was too cold to move, or speak. An alert sounded, something about the cryogenic suspension being manually overidden. Two people were opening Nora's pod. I had been naive enough to hope that they were freeing us from the pods. I don't think I've ever been more wrong.

The male of the two, was tall, bald, and dressed in leathers. The other was a woman, in some sort of hazard suit. The woman pulled Nora's release switch.

"Is- is it over?" Nora asked, regaining conciousness, "Are we alright?"

"Everything's going to be fine." Said the man. He had a rather cold voice. One which I would eventually loathe more than anything else, "Just give me the kid."

"Shaun?" Nora asked drowsily, as the woman attempted to take Shaun from her grasp, "No, no, it's fine, I've got him!"

"I'm not going to ask you twice, lady." The man said, drawing a revolver.

But Nora didn't notice. She continued to hold onto the child, and shouted, "I'm not giving you Shaun!"

A defeaning band echoed through the room, and Nora fell limp. The woman took the now-crying Shaun from my dead wife's arms. The man holstered his revolver, and turned to my pod.

"Looks like we still have the backup." He said. His voice was completely devoid of emotion, and his face matched his personality. A large scar ran across his face, and he had a light stuble.

Something changed in me that day. Perhaps it was seeing my wife's brains blown out, of maybe my infant son kidnapped by an armed man. Whatever it was, from then on, I just felt... different. Colder. Like I had nothing left to lose. Like everything I could lose was already lost. Empty.

Sunday the 23rd of October, 2287

Vault 111, Massachusetts, U.S.A

I was properly awake this time. Inside the pod, was a handle, marked, "EMERGENCY RELEASE"​​​​​.​ I'd say that this classed as an emergency. I pulled it, and the door swung upwards. I pulled the release on Nora's pod. Her splattered brains were frozen to the inside of the pod. It was rather disguisting. By the looks of things, her wedding ring had fallen in the floor in the struggle. I bent down, and picked it up.

"Dont't worry, Nora," I told her corpse, "I'll find whoever did this, and I'll bring back Shaun."