Boston Mayoral Shelter Surveillance Log.
Mark nearly spills lukewarm coffee down his lab coat when an alarm blares to life on the console. He curses under his breath and jabs a button to silence it. On the monitor's array before him, one feed pops into focus with a red border flashing.
INTRUSION DETECTED
"Boston mayoral shelter?" Julie calls from across the dimly lit monitoring station. She swivels her chair toward Mark, her brow raised. "That old bunker's got activity?"
"Looks like it." Mark sets his coffee aside and squints at the screen. The camera feed, a slightly grainy color image, shows the entrance of the bunker. Stepping past the Metal door, a teenage girl, maybe sixteen or so, wearing a blue jumpsuit under a white coat. Mark instinctively zooms the camera. The resolution sharpens just enough to make out yellow lettering on her suit: '159'. The girl was followed closely by the stomping gait of a Protectron robot.
"Got a live one," Mark murmurs. His fingers dance over the console, recording details. "Unknown female, mid-teens, Vault suit… number one-five-nine. Accompanied by a standard Protectron unit. With what seems like repairs." He pauses, noticing something odd. The Protectron's model designation isn't obvious from visuals, but it wields simple laser emitters on its arms. Likely a basic security variant. "Robot is armed. Basic lasers."
Julie rolls her chair closer, peering at her own monitor. She lets out a low whistle. "Vault 159? There is no Vault 159, right?" Mark shakes his head, already pulling up a side panel of known Vault-Tec installations. The list of vault numbers is scrolling by. No listing for 159 in their local database. "Not in the Commonwealth, at least. The highest numbered vault we have on record around here is 118. 159… never heard of it. So she must have traveled from afar."
Julie smirks. "Could be a custom job. Or she slapped random numbers on an old suit to seem important." On the feed, the girl sweeps her Pip-Boy's flashlight across the entry corridor. The greenish beam illuminates peeling paint and an old sign on the wall. She steps cautiously over some debris, a long-dead skeleton slumped by the doorway. As the camera auto-adjusts to follow, Mark catches a glimpse of the girl's face: Clean, focused, but wary. She certainly doesn't look like a hardened mercenary. More like a straggler who wandered in off the wasteland.
"Think she's really from a vault?" Mark muses. "She's got a Pip-Boy and everything." Julie crosses her arms, humming in thought. "If she is, it's a vault we don't know. Could be from out of state. Or an escaped science experiment." She throws Mark a wry look. "Maybe one of yours from the bio labs?"
Mark snorts. "Yeah, because we're raising teenagers in secret vaults now? Doubt it." The Institute has plenty of projects, but a random Vault 159 vault-dweller showing up unannounced isn't one of them, at least not that he's been briefed on. More likely, the girl's just some wastelander who stumbled on a vault suit. Still, the Pip-Boy suggests a genuine vault origin. Those devices don't exactly grow on trees.
They continue watching as the girl kneels by the skeleton. On-screen, her expression stays cool as she gingerly pries something from the bony fingers of the corpse. She holds it up to examine: a small, metallic device. Mark recognizes it immediately. "Huh. She just looted a Stealth Boy."
Julie tilts her head. "Stealth Boy, in a mayoral shelter? Guess whoever croaked there had some fancy tech on 'em." She cracks a half-smile. "Lucky find for Little Miss Vault." The girl pockets the stealth device quickly. Her lips move as she stands and turns to her Protectron. Mark can't hear at first; audio from that feed is just a muted crackle of static and the hum of the robot. He adjusts a dial, boosting the sound.
"...Claptrap, stay here," the girl's voice comes through, tinny but clear enough. She points at the ground, addressing the Protectron. The machine obediently halts, servos whining as it settles in place. Julie barks a short laugh. "Claptrap? Did she just call that Protectron 'Claptrap'?"
Mark cracks a rare grin. "Sounds like it. Hell of a nickname for a bot." Wastelanders name all sorts of scrapheap companions. On-screen, the girl leaves the robot by the stone stairs near some old pipes. The camera feed auto-switches as she passes down the slope to the only path she could take. Mark's console tags the device with a tiny red icon that she was making her way to. AUTOMATED DEFENSE ACTIVE flashes on his readout.
"She's heading right toward that turret," Mark mutters. He leans forward. Julie notices the turret icon too. "That antique still has power? Surprised it didn't rust into dust." As if on cue, the camera feed shows the girl stepping into the turret's detection range. The aging machine whirs to life, swiveling to aim at her. Before Mark or Julie can react, a bolt of blue laser light lances out, scorching the concrete near the girl's feet.
"Whoa!" Julie blurts. On screen, the girl yelps (the mic barely catches a startled curse) and hurls herself behind the metal door that was resting against the fence. Another laser blast sparks off the floor where her legs were a split-second before. Dust and smoke haze the feed. The turret's status reads nominal, cycling for another shot. The girl is pinned behind that debris. Any second now, if she so much as shows a knee, that turret will fry her.
"Should we… do something?" Julie asks uncertainly. Mark can hear an edge in her tone – not exactly concern for the girl, but nerves. If the intruder dies on their watch, that's paperwork. Cleanup. Mark's hand hovers again over the override. They could attempt to remotely shut down the turret. Then again, intervening directly isn't standard procedure unless a surface incident threatens Institute interests. And officially, The Boston Mayoral shelter is worthless. No active Institute projects, just an old bunker we keep half an eye on.
He grimaces. "Protocol is observation only, unless given orders. So far, we haven't been told to interfere." His finger withdraws from the override. The screen shows thermal readings spiking, the turret charging another shot. "Let's see what she does."
Julie nods slowly, though her eyes stay glued to the monitor. "If that thing vaporizes her, that's that. One less thing to worry about." There's no sympathy in her voice, just a matter-of-fact resignation. It's true, if the wastelander gets herself killed by some pre-war turret, it's none of their concern. On the feed, she opens the door to the room, and while the turret fires, she waits for it to stop and rushes to get behind the shelf, just barely making it. "Clever girl," Mark admits under his breath.
"Don't credit her yet," Julie replies, tapping at her terminal. She pulls up the blueprint schematics of Shelter One's interior. A simplified map appears on her side screen. "She ducked the blind spot of the turret. There's a terminal there tied to security."
Mark sees it now on the camera: the green glow of an active terminal screen reflecting off the girl's face. The turret can't hit her there. They watch intently. The girl's fingers fly over the terminal keys. She's hacking it, Mark realizes. Lines of code scroll rapidly on her Pip-Boy's interface, which she's connected via a short cable to the terminal. The feed is too grainy to make out details, but her intent is clear: she's attempting to shut down the turret through the system.
"Think she knows the password?" Julie muses. "Old security might stump her." As if in answer, the turret suddenly powers down. Its base rotates back to neutral position, and the status icon on Mark's console blinks from red to green, then to idle. "Ha. Look at that," Mark remarks. He's actually a little impressed. "She got it. Turret's offline." Julie exhales, an amused grin on her face. "Not bad for a wastelander kid. She's got some skills looting a Stealth Boy, evading a turret, hacking a terminal… Must be Vault-Tec trained."
"Or just desperate and lucky," Mark says. He notes the time and adds a few lines to the log: Intruder disabled automated defense via terminal override. This girl, whoever she is, isn't just blindly stumbling around. That thought dawns on him as he watches her unplug the Pip-Boy from the terminal and start navigating the menu on the screen.
The camera feed from the alcove (Feed 3) gives a partial view of her profile. The girl brushes a stray lock of red hair from her eyes. She looks calm now. The terminal's green text reflects in her eyes as she selects options. "What's she doing now?" Julie mutters, drumming her fingers on the desk.
Mark switches to a direct feed of the terminal output, one advantage of the Institute tapping into pre-war networks. Lines of text scroll by as the girl navigates the interface. "She's in the system menu… Looks like she's accessing user administration." Julie frowns. "User admin? In a shelter system?" Then her eyes widen with realization. "No way. Is she—"
"—uploading her biometric data," Mark finishes, seeing the telltale subroutine initiate. A confirmation prompt appears, while they copied what she was uploading: "Register new authorized resident." On the video feed, the girl has placed her hand on a side panel of the terminal, and her Pip-Boy is jacked in, transferring her credentials.
Julie barks a short laugh of disbelief. "She's moving in! The kid's literally making herself an authorized resident of the shelter." Mark can't help but grin at the audacity. "Well, damn. She got through the door, shut down the turret, and now she's basically putting her name on the lease." He watches as the terminal prints out a final message: "New user added: Access Level – owner." Resourceful little vault dweller, he thinks privately. Most scavengers would have grabbed whatever loot and run. She's making a home out of this old bunker.
Julie shakes her head, half amused, half incredulous. "Got to admit, that's one way to claim some real estate. How many wasters her age would even think to do that?"
"Not many," Mark replies. He notes the completion of the biometric upload in the log. Intruder registered self as shelter resident. Julie stretches her arms and leans back. "So… what do we do with Little Miss Vault 159? She's clearly setting up shop." Her tone is casual, but Mark detects the underlying question. This isn't the usual junkie stumbling into a raider den; this is a competent unknown vault girl taking over a bunker.
Mark purses his lips. Protocol says to report any unusual occurrence. An unknown vault number qualifies. And a newcomer taking control of a pre-war facility, albeit a trivial one, also pings some concern. "I'm writing up the alert to the SRB," he decides, fingers already moving. The Synth Retention Bureau usually handles surface monitoring incidents. Even if this isn't synth-related, they oversee general security topside.
Julie swivels to her own console. "Sending a notice up the chain? Good call. And what about dispatching…?" She trails off, eyeing him. They both know what she's implying. Mark finishes the brief report: Unidentified female youth (Vault suit #159) has breached and secured Boston mayoral shelter. Skillset suggests possible Vault-Tec training. No Institute assets compromised. He flags it as low priority but noteworthy. "We could consider sending a unit," he says slowly. "Maybe a couple of gen-1 synths could clear it out."
Julie wrinkles her nose. "Gen-1s? Those clunkers would probably trip over the same junk she did. Besides, to what end? To eliminate her? Capture her?" Mark shrugs, still gazing at the feed. The girl is now moving through the room freely, inspecting the turret's remains and the terminal. She looks more relaxed, maybe even a bit triumphant. "Elimination would be standard for intruders, but given she is from an unknown vault.... Plus, she doesn't even know we're watching." For a low-value target, sending synths just isn't justified.
"And capture?" Julie continues, sounding unconvinced. "We grab her, drag her back….?" Mark nods in agreement. The more he thinks about it, that it could be a good choice. He glances at a separate monitor that shows a map of the Commonwealth with dots of monitored sites. "We don't have many unknown variables like her. Vault 159 could mean she came from a Vault-Tec experiment we know nothing about. That might interest Bioscience or the docents."
Rose cut in, giving a derisive snort. "Maybe if she had a big neon sign saying 'Primal human here'. But all we see is a kid making a bunker into her hideout. We have bigger fish to fry." She taps a pen on the desk, thinking. "If she starts poking at things beyond her little hovel, like if she sniffs near our facilities, then I'd worry. But this? This is domestic. Let her play house in the shelter."
Mark chuckles under his breath. Rose has a way of putting things bluntly. "So what's the vote to?" He asked, looking around, oddly, it seemed most voted to sit back and watch. "Guess we sit tight and watch." He flicks through a few more camera angles. One shows the bunker's small atrium where the girl is now walking back towards the entrance. She waves her hand and her Protectron, Claptrap, whatever she calls it, trudges in at her gesture. The robot's eye sensors sweep the room, now cleared of threats. The girl gives it a pat on the arm. Even without audio, Mark can imagine her relief. She's secured a safe spot in a dangerous world.
Julie seems to read his mind and smirks. "Don't get soft on me, Mark. You look almost proud of her." He stiffens and scoffs lightly. "Hardly. Just acknowledging competence. She got farther in there than most raiders could." The girl's no threat, just a survivor with wits. Still, she remains an unknown on his screen, and unknowns are to be catalogued and controlled if needed. A soft chime pings on the console, an incoming directive. Mark immediately straightens and opens the comm line. A filtered voice crackles through, calm and authoritative. It's the duty officer from SRB.
"Surveillance Team, this is Control," the voice states. "Acknowledged Boston mayoral shelter breach report. Maintain observation. Do not engage. Repeat: no engagement. Continue monitoring and log any further developments. Control out."
The comm goes silent. Mark and Julie exchange glances. That was quick and to the point. The higher-ups have spoken: essentially echoing what they both already suspected. Do nothing, just watch. The girl is officially deemed not worth intervention. Julie leans back with a satisfied sigh. "Well, there we have it. Straight from the top: babysit the cameras and keep our hands clean." She pops open a package of InstaMash from her drawer and shakes it. "Might as well grab a snack. This show's staying on the air."
**Back To Morgan**
I glanced up at the ceiling turret I'd shut down. I did not love the idea of leaving it turned off behind me. If I was going to have a base, I wanted the base turrets to shot anything that wasn't me.
I pulled the turret controls back up, thumbed through the settings, and brought it online again, watching the status change from idle to armed. The servos twitched once, that tiny mechanical movement, and my shoulders eased. "Good," I muttered, more to myself than anything, then looked toward the doorway where Claptrap stood like he'd been put on pause. "Alright. We're not dying to our own house today, Aye?"
Past the big crate in the back was the elevator. It was such a stupid thing to be nervous about, just an elevator, just a metal box with a button but my brain wouldn't let it be simple. Upstairs turrets were one thing. But downstairs… downstairs could be on some separate loop, some other subsystem.
I kept seeing it in my head: elevator doors opening and two ceiling guns turning me into red mist before I even took a step. I didn't say any of that out loud.
I just reached for Claptrap's arm plating instead and gave it a quick wipe with my sleeve. "Stay close," I told him, then stepped into the elevator first so if anything happened, it happened to me and not him standing in the doorway like a target. If i was heartless i would have stood behind him but i wasnt. The doors groaned shut with a sound like the whole shelter complaining, and the cage shuddered as it started down.
The ride wasn't long, but it felt like it took forever. The elevator's light flickered, throwing our shadows up the metal walls in short, twitchy jumps. My grip on the laser musket went tight enough that my hands started to ache. Claptrap's servos hummed softly behind me, steady, and that steadiness helped more than I wanted to admit. When the elevator finally clanked to a stop, my stomach did that little drop like I'd missed a step, and then the doors rattled open.
I didn't move right away. I stood there and listened. No turret whine. No targeting click. No sudden blue beams. Just the low, stale hush of underground air and the faint electrical buzz of a place that still had some life left in it. I eased forward one step, then another, half expecting something to go wrong. Nothing happened. I exhaled slow through my nose, then looked up, and there they were, at the middle of the hall. Two more turrets, mounted and waiting. My eyes went straight to them. Their housings were dusty but intact. The kind of dusty that said they'd been idle a long time but still had power. I paused again, heart thumping, and lifted my wrist so the Pip-Boy's screen caught my eye. I didn't have a "turret friendly" button and I didn't have a neon sign that said PLEASE DON'T SHOOT THE TEENAGE VAULT GIRL. All I had was the hope that the shelter's system actually meant what it said.
The turrets tracked. I could see the faint movement, the little adjustment like they were noticing me. My muscles tightened anyway. Claptrap stepped up behind me with a heavy stomp, and I felt my throat go dry.
Then the turrets settled back into neutral. I actually laughed. It came out small and breathy. "Okay," I said softly. "Okay. Good. We're… we're friends. Cool." I lifted my hand and gave Claptrap a quick pat on the shoulder. "See? Told you everything would be okay...."
My eyes kept doing that constant scan: corners, ceiling, doorframes, shadows. The kind of scan that never shuts off once it starts. The shelter smelled like old concrete and dust and that faint sour hint of mold that clings to places with bad airflow. Everything was coated in a thin layer of old-world decay. But it was enclosed. It was defensible. It had doors that still latched, lights that still worked, and turrets that would kill things for me, which made me feel better. In my chest, excitement fizzed like a shaken Noka cola.
My radio crackled to life when I thumbed it on, and I turned the dial until I hit the familiar station. Diamond City Radio came through. The DJ, he slid into another old song. I turned it up a little, not loud enough to announce myself to whatever was down here if anything at all, but enough that the sound filled the hallway behind me. It made the shelter feel less like a tomb. Claptrap's head angled toward the noise, then back to me, like he was checking if this was part of the plan. "Background noise," I told him. "Helps me think."
The first thing I checked wasn't even a room. It was that little side room off the corridor. The air in there felt different. Cooler. Moving. I followed it with my eyes until I saw it: the big pipe with the cover off, the open mouth. I could feel a breeze coming from it. I leaned closer, shining my Pip-Boy light into it. The inside was dark and dusty, and the pipe curved away into the shelter. Vent access point. Potential emergency escape path, but id need to make a false wall or something towards the hallway, so that its hidden. Needs a new grate too. I backed up, eyes flicking to the door, then back to the pipe. "We're going ignoring this for now." I told myself. "That's a future-me problem."
I walked back to Claptrap, and eyed the hallway with the table and that locked grate room. It was a storage area where a heavy metal door sat locked, if i could make construction bots they could break it down and i wouldnt need to hack it. Diamond City Radio kept humming music out.
The DJ on the radio stumbled through an intro to the next song, the music swelling, as if walked past the storage lockup and took the door that led to the stairs to the actual home in this shelter. The sound changed as I moved, plus with the stairs this wide claptrap would have a easier time going up and down.
The living room and kitchen space opened up in front of me, and it wasnt as bad as i though it would be. Tables, counters, cabinets. The shelter wasn't pretty. In fact even if i cleaned it, it would need a fresh paint job maybe.
There was a turn that led deeper past the kitchen, into the rest of the shelter's rooms, and I took. Where would I put a turret if I was defending this? Where do I store food? Where do I put a workbench? Where do I put the research bench to help speed up these much longer research projects? So far i have been smart on clicking on the ones that were only 600- 800 points and it still took so much time.
I checked doors as I went. Most opened. One was stuck. Every new room was brought the idea of breaking some of the walls to make it a big workshop for my robots.
As we moved, "Butcher Pete" faded out and Danny Kaye's upbeat patter in "Civilization" took its place. "Bingo, Bango, Bongo, I don't want to leave the Congo—" the singers chirped, voices syrupy-sweet and echoing down the hall. The irony of the song's hook, not wanting to leave the Congo, wasn't lost on me. I almost snorted. Here I was eager to crawl into a metaphorical cave, away from civilization, making it my home. "Guess I've had enough of civilization too,"
Claptrap clanked around as he walked to a bathroom, and I heard the splash of his metal foot stepping in something wet. Wet? My heart skipped, water! I hurried to the bathroom door. The floor was indeed puddled. A pipe somewhere was leaking, dribbling water steadily from the ceiling onto cracked tiles. The air smelled damp and mildewy here. I traced the leak up to a broken showerhead pipe. A thin trickle of brownish water was running even now, pooling around Claptrap's foot. The old Protectron looked down at the puddle and made no comment. I grinned despite myself. "Would you look at that," I said softly. The shelter's plumbing still had some life! This was likely storage tank water or groundwater being fed by a pump.
It wasn't clean, the rust color told me the pipes themselves were corroded but it was water nonetheless. Hygiene research, don't fail me now. I knew from my studies that water in a place like this would need serious filtration or boiling before use. Still, the fact that any water ran at all was a bloody miracle. I tried the sink faucet. It resisted from years of disuse, then turned with a screech. A burst of brownish water gurgled out, smelling of metal and mold, then tapered to a thin stream. It sputtered and died after a few seconds, but then resumed a weak, steady flow. I let out a delighted laugh. "We have running water,"
I left the water running for a minute, trying to flush the worst of the rust out of the pipes. My mind was already spinning through possibilities. If the pump still worked, I could flush and drain the whole system, then see about repairing any leaks. The Hygiene research I'd done taught me about setting up purifiers and proper waste handling. Perhaps the shelter had a water purification system built in. If not, I could rig something with filters, maybe rig up a chemfuel refining byproduct as a disinfectant or use good old boiling.
And hot water… oh, a hot shower was on my wish list. Did they have a working water heater here? If the heater is intact, I might have hot running water. The thought nearly made me giddy. "Now don't go getting ahead of yourself," I murmured, forcing myself to move on. There were more rooms to inspect.
The next door was already open. Inside was a child's bedroom. I swept the light over peeling pastel wallpaper decorated with faded cartoon animals. Two small beds sat against the walls. On one bed lay a teddy bear, miraculously intact and still propped against the pillow.
"Poor kiddos," I murmured. No sign of any small skeletons here, thank god, maybe the people that raided the shelter took them with em. The beds were empty, and aside from the blocks and bear, the only other things were a couple of decaying picture books on a shelf and crayon drawings curling on a bulletin board. I didn't examine them.
This room was just another space, one I could repurpose someday. Storage, maybe.
Across the hall was the master bedroom, if I remembered right.
It was locked, I jiggled the knob gently, but it wouldn't budge. I considered trying to pick it, but the mechanism felt jammed. No immediate way in. "Another time," I muttered. The mayor's private room could hold useful things, in that safe but it wasn't top priority right now.
I made claptrap wait here as i walked down the steps into the locker room that connected to the gym. I stood there listening for a bit, as my hands shaked. With trembling hands i opend the doors to the basketball court,
I caught the tail end of "Civilization" fading out and Travis's timid voice saying something indistinct in the background hiss. A new song began. "It's All Over But the Crying"
The poignant, smooth vocals flowed out, eerie in the gym: "It's all over but the cryin'..." sang the lead voice, "and nobody's cryin' but me…". I reached to lower the volume a tad.
I advanced across the gym. My throat tightened at the sight.
I murmured. "Friends all over know I'm trying… to forget about how much I care for you…" I sang nervously with the singer. I murmured under my breath, "It's all over…" and then shook myself. "C'mon," I said, softly but firmly, and continued and as i looked i noticed the wall hadnt been broken yet. My heart wanted to leap out of my chest!
But i kept silent just in case there was a death claw behind that wall. And made my way to the utility room. I smelled oil and ozone. I found what I was looking for, the generator. A large, humming piece of machinery dominated the space. Its console lights flickered amber and green.
On a panel readout I could see the core's status: 10% charge remaining, blinking urgently. "Damn," I muttered. A tenth of a core wasn't going to last very long, maybe, in the game when I came to this place it was still active. But since this was the real world. There wasnt a promise this place would still be functional in a few days.
If I only still had that half-spent one I traded to Harlowe's people… I sighed. No use lamenting; that deal saved Claptrap, and I'd have been dead without my robot friend. I'd find another fusion core out in the Commonwealth soon enough, if not my Electricity research came with schematics for jury-rigging power sources.
For now, I tapped a few keys on. I'd turned off whatever appliances might have been drawing phantom loads (refrigerator, electric range, etc.), and set the water pumps to manual so they wouldn't keep pressuring the leaks constantly. Satisfied that the reactor wouldn't crap out on me in the next hour, I stood and wiped a sheen of sweat from my forehead.
The generator room itself was sweltering compared to the rest of the shelter, the reactor giving off residual heat. It was nice, like a giant mechanical heartbeat, weak but hanging in there.
"We'll get you patched up soon," I said softly, patting the metal housing of the reactor like it was a living thing. Chemfuel Refining might allow me to jury-rig a temporary generator using chemfuel if it came to that, but ideally I'd score another fusion core or two.
In the corner of the generator room, I spotted a weapons and armor workbench and, to my delight, a basic tool set hung on the wall. Wrenches, screwdrivers, even a battery-powered soldering iron. With the tools i got from the farm, i should have what ineeded for the time being. Many looked rusted or dull, but some were salvageable.
I ran a finger over the workbench surface, leaving a trail in the thick dust. Id made my way back to Claptrap, jogging, and making sure to close the door to the gym.
Claptrap stood guard were i had keft him.
Id sleep a lot better tonight. I pictured setting up a makeshift junk turret to cover the gym's weak point, not that it would do a lot realistically. I'd need to scavenge a gun and some scrap metal for a platform, and some basic motors. "This place is a treasure trove, eh Claptrap?" I said, nudging him. He replied in his flat tone, "UNABLE TO ASSESS. TREASURE CLASSIFICATION NOT FOUND." I laughed under my breath. "That's alright, I found it. And it's good."
By the time we finished our circuit and returned to the central hallway, Diamond City Radio had cycled through a few songs into lighter fare. I recognized the swinging intro of "crawl out through the fallout" faintly crackling out of my Pip-Boy. I was tired, bone-tired, I realized. The adrenaline that had spiked during our initial entry was fading, leaving me with leaden limbs and a profound sense of relief. We had explored every accessible space: no hostiles, no traps. We had water (albeit dirty water), partial power, defensible positions, and actual walls around us instead stead of some wooden house.