"Travis Lonely Miles coming at you with Barbra Davis. LEWIS! I meant Lewis. Davis...She was the Trillionaire. Barbara Lewis."

The second time Nate visited Vault 81, the air about the bunker felt different. It smelled like activity, perspiration, and the smell that appears when too many people are in a single room, but one of them starts coughing. The vault door was closed again, but even looking at a closed-door, it was offensive and trying to ward Nate away.

It was fear.

Not needing to be a changeling to sense the change in body language, the security guard over the Vault Door spoke on edge, with a slight pleading, expecting tone.

"You're here? Good." Came the reply, although Nate could've probably told them he was the ringleader of a circus back in town, and they still would've recognized his voice. Next came the same grinding noise that rattled every joint in his body and the shaking vibrations of the vault door being pulled open.

The first big tip-off was the face mask the guards wore, the kind available to people for free at a hospital with symptoms of the flu or a cold, runny nose or coughing.

There was a hasty gathering of vault guards that escorted Nate to the elevator and sent him down with two of their own.

"What's happened?" Nate asked as they descended the five stories below ground.

"A mole-rat bit Austin, a kid here in Vault 81."

"What really happened?" Nate asked wanting the whole story.

"Dr. Forsyth can explain more." The second guard replied.

The first time Nate was here, the Vault was loud and busy with maintenance projects being accomplished, tasks being done, people working on repairs, but now as the elevator doors open, there was a silence that reigned throughout the vault. It was unsettling, like when he first stepped out of his pod and collapsed onto the floor. He didn't yet realize who Meathead was, and there was a quietness to Vault 111, only the reactor and the hum of machinery coming from somewhere, but he could never exactly place the source.

Down the foyer steps, there was Maria and Mark Summerset preparing food in the cafeteria, but their heads were down, focused on cooking. There were guards posted around the foyer on both levels, but they weren't as animated.

Horatio the barber was buzzing another resident's hair down to the scalp, with all the hair being swept up, gathered, and it was there the scent of burnt hair was prevalent. These were quarantine measures, Nate realized.

Barely able to save a glance, the hydroponics greenhouse was vacant, but that meant Doctor Priscilla Penske was with Austin.

"Where're all the residents?" Nate asked, being guided along the long hallway.

"Overseer MacNamara asked that all residents stay in their rooms for the time being."

From the one clue about the Mole Rat, Nate internally knew that Austin must've contracted something terrible to put all of Vault 81 on a high alert.

When he reached the second set of stairs leading down to the Clinic, the guards stopped following, but voices could be heard.

\111/

"Well, you need to do something, Jacob, aside from looking back and forth at those charts and telling me nothing!" Dr. Penske called out.

"These charts show the results of bloodwork and every asset we have available, and I'm telling you, there's nothing more that can be done! I'm running tests as fast as I can, Priscilla." Dr. Forsythe replied.

As Nate stepped through the door, he quickly read the expressions on the doctor's faces, Bobbi De Luca's face was locked in a manic 'caught red-handed' panic, and Gwen Macnamara was standing over Austin's unconscious body with two more guards standing at a respectful distance.

Her frown was palpable to the situation and visible through the facemask.

"I can't treat Austin until I know what he is infected with." Dr. Forsythe went on, beyond them in the operating room was Rachel working on a Mole Rat's corpse, presumably the one that bit Austin. She wore gloves and a face mask as well, but her expression was unreadable.

"Dr. Forsythe," Bobby tried to intervene and add his two cents to the conversation, but Dr. Penske immediately cut him off.

"Not now Bobby, and as for you, stranger," Dr. Penske glared at Nate, sizing him up. "You'll have to wait your turn." Done with Bobby and Nate, she turned her attention back to Dr. Forsythe.

"Austin got bit by a Mole Rat, Jacob, there can't be all that many mole rat diseases or toxins!"

"Rachel is examining the Mole Rat, hopefully, she'll find something, but that stranger," Jacob turned to smile at Nate, but it was the type of smile that was going to be followed up with a stringent request. "You dismissed may help us save Austin's life. These aren't ordinary mole rats, we don't know what type of diseases they may be carrying. Because Austin is just a child and doesn't have the developed immune system, nor the shots we haven't had in decades, it's affecting him more severely."

Bobby found his words again, "Dr. Forsythe, please! I found something that may help Austin."

"What is it, Bobby?" Dr. Forsythe asked.

"You know that door Austin found? I found it first, I was keeping it as a storage space for things, but I think Austin saw me get in there."

"You mean your damn chems!" Dr. Penske accused, Overseer Macnamara bit down hard on her teeth and turned away from Austin, and Bobby couldn't look Priscilla nor the Overseer in the eye.

"Bobby, please continue. What did you find in there?" Dr. Forsythe asked, growing tired of Dr. Penske's urgency.

"It's like a whole other Vault in there! Half ruined, and caved in, there's a terminal in there with notes about using Mole Rats to grow viruses, but they also used them to create vaccines and treatments!" Bobby swallowed, unable to finish the sentence, but both doctors stopped listening and were already forming a response.

"Then there might be a cure for whatever Austin got from that mole rat somewhere in that place." Dr. Penske said, looking to Dr. Forsythe for support.

"There may be, that's why I asked Overseer MacNamara to send out a message, asking for this stranger you disregarded."

"Would anyone care to fill me in?" Nate innocently asked.

"Yes." Dr. Forsythe replied. "After you left, I did an analysis on the blood samples you gave me, and you're toxicology came back with startling results we haven't seen in generations. You got your shots." He finished with, leaving Nate to piece together the situation at hand

All twelve vaccines, Nate told himself.

From Shingles, Polio, Rubella, Hepatitis A, B, and C, Shiganosis, Rickets, Malaria, Zika, West Nile, Tuberculosis vaccines, and then a booster shot that Nate and every other military personnel got for free when they joined the army. It was mandatory, the U.S. Government didn't want an unvaccinated soldier dying from a sickness that could be prevented, nor spreading it among other soldiers.

The shots were taken over six months, but it put his immune system through the wringer, and then he and every other soldier came out stronger.

"When I discovered the number of antibodies in your blood, I thought that it was a mistake, this was shortly before Austin was bitten, and there was time for me to look deeper into your actual blood work. After he was bitten, I made a comparison, and three strains were flagged in Austin's blood that your blood helped us identify."

"Wait, three?" Nate asked, even a normal brown rat from Pre-war times rarely carried more than two diseases on it, but three was like injecting toilet water into the blood. Nasty things to think about, but Nate asked, "How many strains have you identified?"

"We still don't know, there may be as many as seven, but the results haven't come back yet. We've been growing microcultures, but that takes time, time Austin doesn't have. This secret vault that Bobby described, Overseer Macnamara sealed it off, but not before we saw inside. We need to ask you for a favor and look inside the vault. If there are any research notes, or as Dr. Penske said, a cure of any kind, or even anything that relates to the diseases that were used to inject into these mole rats, we need you to find them and bring them here. We don't have the immune system as you do, if we send people in, they may end up worse than Austin, and then we'll be doubly under pressure with trying to combat all these different diseases."

"I would be glad to help, but...do you have any protective gear? A biohazard suit? A radiation suit?" Nate mentally crossed his fingers, but Overseer MacNamara spoke up with different results.

"We can give you protective padding, an armored vault suit, and a flamethrower to deal with the mole rats on the other side." Overseer MacNamara said. "Bobby here can show you the entrance, and my men meet you there with the equipment."

"And I'd like to thank you for doing this...I apologize, I remember Austin introducing you to us a few days ago, but I've forgotten your name." Dr. Penske said, thanking him.

"Nate. Just relax, worrying won't help Austin, and right now it sounds like Dr. Forsythe and Rachel need everyone on their side working with them to help Austin."

"You're right. You're right." Dr. Penske told herself. "Thank you, Nate."

"Let's go, I'll show you where the door is," Bobby said, he spent far too much time in that room already and was sweating bullets. As they both left, Nate looked around the room and saw the Overseer looking directly at Bobby, arms crossed and scowling, head down and glaring at him. Reading the writing on the wall, Nate followed after him.

They walked to the Reactor, through the door when Nate said, "Calm down, everything's going to be fine."

Bobby swallowed, on the verge of breaking down, he was about to speak when Nate said, "Stop. Find your breath." That took a massive weight off Bobby's chest, and it felt like he could breathe again.

He exhaled a long sigh, "I think I'm gonna get fired."

"Just remember, life on Earth was only temporary anyway, a job is only a small part of that. Thing's will work out." Nate patted Bobby on the shoulder, and in that few moments, he felt like his vision became much clearer. "But," Nate whispered, "I suggest you get rid of the chems, it's not going to help you or your sister's case when security roots through your room and they find any spare chems you've got tucked away. When this is all over, what do you think the Overseer will want to talk to you about?" The breath in Bobby's throat caught as his neck muscles tightened up.

'He's right,' Bobby realized, remembering and realizing his carelessness. There were more than just his stash of chems from the secret vault, but little tidbits of paraphernalia and drugs all over his workplace and room. By themselves, no one would make note of it, but when guards piled everything all together, it made for a different story.

"I..."

"Go take care of it," Nate told Bobby, walking the rest of the to the reactor room himself.

\111/

Nate secured the padded vault suit armor over his own from Vault 111.
Tina De Luca was sitting in the corner, head between her legs and hands over her head, clasped together.

Overseer MacNamara briefly took off her face mask and spoke to Nate before showing him the door. "Be careful of the molerats down there. Kill as many as you can. If they infected Austin, they could infect you as well." She warned.

"That's why I asked for protection." With the flamethrower sitting ready on the table, Nate still prepared his shotgun and kept it close for swapping out if the mole rats got too close.

The Vault 81 security pressed a panel on the wall beneath the staircase in the reactor room, and the wall slid upwards to reveal a white painted hydraulic door, leading to the secret vault.

Picking up the flamethrower, it was an old M-44 model, from the days of World War 2, with a large tank he wore on his back.
Twisting the fluid on, and lighting the pilot, a hiss of gas could be heard as a small flame jetted out of the nozzle.

"Try not to completely burn down the vault, if you can't help it." Overseer MacNamara asked.

"I will endeavor not to let that happen." Stepping through the white door, the security closed the hydraulic door behind Nate.

\111/

The bottom floor of the secret vault was completely dug up or covered with thick layers of dirt. The walls were collapsing in, showing the lack of supports from Mole Rats eating their way through solid concrete and metal.

The path through was blocked and forced Nate to go upstairs to the second floor, where a glowing terminal with power still running through it sat idle. This was the terminal Bobby was referring to, but for an addict to come up here to this room where a few rotted mattresses, a desk, and a chair for him to sit down and get high in, it was more than enough. The air smelled damp and moist like mildew, whatever chems Bobby burnt off, the smell was long dissipated.

There was a brief glimmer of hope and shock that on the computer, the logger listed 167 known diseases were being used on the mole rats, with 67% of the diseases curable through 11 vaccines.

Nate jumped when he heard 'Protectron on duty!', then through the door, a Vault 81 protectron was lumbering through the next hallway. All the walls were falling apart, and looking down onto the ground floor, dirt and rock from above were collapsing through the ceiling, down the ground floor.

The second floor was littered with tracks and marks of the mole rats, but until now he hadn't heard anything.

Carefully making his way through the hallway and back down to the dirt first floor, he found their dining area and kitchen, still stocked, but partially rummaged through by the scavenging mole rats and other bugs that made their way in.

Readying his flamethrower, he heard scraping and the sounds of dirt being moved. Through the darkness, mole rats were clawing their way up through the dirt tunnels they've made for themselves and were swarming.

Nine mole-rats scurried towards Nate, the size of golden retrievers, he didn't waste time incinerating them as they got close. One blast of the heat was enough to make them break, but circle back around again. Firing more jets of propane, the skin of two mole-rats blackened and burnt, making them squeal as they were torched to death.

After holding down the nozzle for a second, a ten-foot-long spray of flame was as far as he could get. The mole rats kept coming though, they wanted Nate, but he jumped up onto the counter in the dining area and swung the flamethrower back and forth. In a minute, seven burning mole rats were running, squealing, all bumping into each other as they ran around the dining area, trying to stop the flames from killing them, but Nate kept the heat on until every single one of them was dead.

Shaken by the mole rats, an eerie quiet returned to the secret vault.

"Jesus! This thing's fucking hot!" Nate's face and hands felt like well-done steaks under a grill, after blasting off a few bursts from the flamethrower.

Progressing down a hallway, Nate figured it was leading back towards the main vault's foyer area. Passing into an area marked maintenance, four reactors stood half-buried in the dirt, and inactive.

"Jesus." He said to himself, the amount of energy they could produce and the parts that could be used, there was plenty of potential for these machines.

Another staircase took him back up again to a second floor, but the groaning of the metal staircase must have been what set the mole rats off.

Three mole-rats burst out of the dirt from the ground floor he just walked through, making him set the whole area ablaze as the mole rats ran up, into the line of fire, then back down again. From behind a mole rat jumped and bit down on his shoulder pad, Nate was horrified that one got so close and struck him. Letting go of the flamethrower, the harness let it swing down to his side while his free hand grabbed at the knife clipped to his waist. Yanking it out, he stabbed the molerat in the head and then the neck, then once more for good measure in the head again, this time plunging the knife deep into the eye socket. The mole rat was forced to let go as it thrashed on the ground. Nate tipped the flamethrower down and burnt the rat to death on the spot.

Another mole rat came running down the ramp from the third floor, but Nate pulled up his shotgun and fired. The head and foreleg exploded in a red paste as the body went limp.

The sounds of things crashing around, metal crates being shoved to the side were coming from above, scaring Nate into taking the high ground.

"Where are you, you fucker?" Nate asked, readying both weapons.

The sound of the protectron firing off laser blasts made him tense, then he realized it wasn't aimed at him, but a mole rat in the other section of the vault. Still, there were more above him, making Nate move cautiously to listen for more mole rats.

The next detail caught of the secret vault caught Nate off guard, but he expected it as well. A darkened window covered with dirt and grime built up over the years was marked with the tag "Hydroponics Garden."

Through a speaker, he could hear Dr. Penske and another woman he didn't know the name of speaking to each other.

"I'm sure this whole thing will blow over with Austin in a week."

"He'll be up and running in no time." Dr. Penske said, slightly worried, but remaining optimistic. "But why him? He's just a boy."

"He's going to be fine. You'll see."

Nate tapped on the glass, unsure if they could hear him or not. Slamming his fist into the glass, there wasn't any response from the other side, no indication they heard him, or even the gunshot from before.

With no other way to go but up, Nate came to a security door marked 'Research' and allowed himself to give a depressed sigh, this is where things really would go to shit.

Pressing through, he closed the door behind him.

The first wall had another observation window that was darkened over time from neglect to the point he couldn't see through it, but the tag on the wall marked it as the "Vault 81 Depot."

More voices, more conversations that could be overheard, but Nate didn't want to waste any more time listening in when there were so many more things he needed to pay attention to while on this side. Down the hallway, he passed a third window that marked it as the Overseer's office, but this time the voices were much louder and more strained.

"You and your staff are to make sure every resident remains under stringent medical observation." Overseer MacNamara ordered.

"But, Overseer," Dr. Forsythe began but was cut off.

"No buts. This is for the good of the Vault."

Nate shook his head, "For the greater good." He said to himself.

"We can't risk this pathogen from spreading," Overseer MacNamara said.

"Understood."

"How is Austin doing?"

"Not good. The infection is progressing rapidly."

"Then let's hope that outsider pulls through and finds us a cure."

There was an unsaid 'if' hanging in the air, and Nate could tell neither Dr. Forsythe, MacNamara, nor himself wanted to admit it.

If Austin didn't make it. If Austin died from the infection.

Going through another security door, down onto the second floor, Nate immediately ran back up as seven mole-rats all came running at him. Three were on him in a second. Biting him in the leg, the arm, and then in hand. Tearing through his glove, the mole rat gouged through the skin and drew blood.

"Motherfuckers!" He screamed, burning everything in sight, he jerked his bleeding hand out of one mole-rat's mouth, and stomped its legs, then kicking it like a ball to the far wall.

Nate yanked the second off his arm, which thankfully was protected with armor, and torched that one as well. Kicking the third one, he stomped and stomped until the neck bones were broken and it couldn't move. Incinerating the whole lot, Nate kept the one that bit him alive, intending to come back for it later.

Nate looked down at his bleeding hand, "FUCK!" he yelled. "Goddamnit!"

Unsure of what to do at that moment, he stared down at his bleeding hand, and then the flame thrower.

"God...If you're with me. I hate what I'm about to do."

Readying a stim pack, he awkwardly angled the flamethrower in his right hand, cradling it against his chest. Looking around, he didn't have anything to bite down on, and then said: "Fuck it."

Burning away the top layers of skin on his hand, for three solid seconds. Nate was screaming and hating every part of his life right then and there. Howling, he was filled with regret as his left hand was set on fire.

The bite mark was completely incinerated, along with most of Nate's left hand, but after dropping the flamethrower and plunging the stim pack into the muscle behind the thumb, he kept shouting and swearing through the pain.

It was still too much, falling onto his back and pinching the wrist to try and suffocate the nerves from sending signals back to his brain he screamed and screamed.

"Oh...You fucking bastards. You bastards. Oh, I'm going to kill every last one of you." Rolling his head toward the mole-rat with the broken legs that bit him, "Except you! I'm gonna make sure they experiment the shit out of you!"

His head was pounding, but he was sure that he wasn't infected with the mole-rat diseases. He couldn't get sick but damn the alternative. Plan C was to lop off his hand and cauterize the wound, but he needed his left hand, he was attached to it in more ways than one.

Nate could barely move the muscles in his left hand, still regretting everything he did, but his heart rate disagreed and kept pounding away.

\111/

Charging back down the stairs, Nate lined up his shotgun sights with two-mole rats that were hesitant to come near him again after the burst of flame, but Nate fired three times and killed them. He couldn't grab anything while his hand was healing, instead, he rested the barrel over his left arm, and shot with his right.

The next area of the vault opened up like their foyer, but each room was lined with opened cages and more mole rats. Nate didn't hesitate, with the shotgun propped against his body, and flamethrower in reach. Nate burned or shot his way through the labs, killing five more. Poking his head in each room to make sure he killed all of them, there was an ugly green glowing bloated mole rat, pregnant with more little devils.

"Oh, God," Nate said, looking at the immobile mother mole-rat. It could barely waddle with how pregnant it was, but Nate didn't know to shoot it or let Dr. Forsythe take the first chance at it. Glancing down at his hand, he raised the flame thrower and burnt it to a black charred corpse.

Not thinking about the horrid smell, and refusing to acknowledge the sounds he was hearing or the little pops as skin oils burned, Nate left the room and opened the sliding door to the next lab, ready to blast everything in sight, but immediately stopped.

Swallowing, behind a locked cage door, was a glowing unicorn.

Its bones were visible through the skin like an x-ray, it tilted its head toward the noise of the door being opened and opened its mouth. All the teeth were visible, and the eyes were white glowing orbs.

"A..ah..ah...ah...at tah...tah...tah. huam..." It tried to say.

Nate was struck with shock, and unsure of what to do when it's horn started glowing, and the air in the room became hot. His pip-boy ticked away and Nate realized this unicorn was expelling radiation in lethal amounts.

Watching the horn, from the tip it started melting in on itself, but the green glowing corona of energy around where the horn should've been, grew brighter, and the rads in the room kept going up.

The unicorn's skin grew brighter, it was difficult to look at, and fear finally made Nate move his legs away from this room right as the spell the glowing unicorn meant to cast finally reached its peak. The unicorn's horn was completely melted away and then the entire unicorn exploded from its core outwards.

Completely burning and atomizing itself in the process, a wave of high nuclear energy blew itself outwards into the hall. Nate shut the door and shook in a slight panic. The pip-boy read he was at 500 r/u.

This was going terribly, but the adrenalin rushing through his body made him want to finish this as quickly as possible, then get the hell out.

The third floor of this foyer was lined with more cages and food bowls for the mole rats, where another mole rat mother was quick to attack him, but Nate fired and killed the three mole-rats on this floor.

Finding a research lab on the third floor, along with a surgery room, there was a fridge that Nate immediately went to and found test tubes with dried specimen samples in them. Taking them out, he carefully slid them onto a rack and wrapped them with rags, then finally put the whole thing in his backpack.

There was a working computer monitor that Nate quickly went through, but it was a day-to-day operations log and gave Nate the story behind what this side of the Vault was planning on doing. This section of Vault 81 was meant to grow viruses, and inject them into the mole rats, after creating a breed of mole rats that could survive the virus, they were going to infect the population of vault 81 with the virus while working on a cure. They intended to create a vault dweller impervious to viruses by making a super virus, combated by a super serum.

This whole experiment was to allow the Vault Dwellers on the other side the ability to keep up with diseases on the outside world, and not need to worry about their immune systems needing to go through generations of playing catch up when it was finally time to reclaim the outside world.

"God-damn motherfuckers," Nate said, squeezing his bleeding burnt hand again, he found a roll of duct tape laying on a table next to a toolbox. Wrapping the wound several times in duct tape, the next area leads him higher into the vault.

Three lockers were laying down on the ground, with burnt-out candles on top of them. All of them had lab coats folded neatly and laid down on top of the lockers, with the one on the right with a pair of glasses on top of the pile.

Nate suddenly realized he hadn't seen any bodies throughout this side of the vault. No skeletons, just mole rats.

Three bodies and these were their graves. Leaving them untouched, his eyes roamed around the topmost floor for any other signs and came to a window. Peering in, a dark floating shape came and approached the window, making Nate recoil from the shock. He didn't expect to see anything else aside from mole rats, but it was a Mr. Handy unit painted white that eyed him. The lenses zoomed in and out, taking photos, memorizing him.

\111/

Nate swallowed, "Hello?" he asked.

"Oh! Another stranger." The robot replied it was a females voice, with a french accent. 'Miss Nanny,' Nate corrected himself.

"Are you Vault-tec Security? I've waited so very patiently for you to arrive."

A chill went down through Nate's legs, he scratched at the side of his face and seized the opportunity. "Yes. Yes, I am."

The Miss Nanny bot replied extaticly, "Superb! I placed an emergency call so long ago, I was beginning to think something dreadful must of happened. I am pleased to report I completed my duties 83 years ago."

Nate felt the blood rush to his head, so he simply nodded and smiled, "Great. Great." he said twice.

"Thousands of pathogens were grown in the mole-rat hosts. Then a single broad-spectrum cure was developed to treat them all. Very satisfying work for many decades."

Nate couldn't stop smiling, his eyes were tearing up as he was about to say something, but the Miss Nanny bot had one last thing to say, coming closer to the glass. "Now please, tell me you have the authority to release me from the lab."

"I..." Nate caught his breath. "I'm authorized to release you from the lab."

"Superb. I almost gave up all hope of ever leaving this lab." Nate swallowed, watching the Miss Nanny bot hover over to the sliding door and unlock it. The door parted and they both met each other face to face.

"Since you are a Vault-tec representative, I entrust you with the broad spectrum cure I developed."

Nate kept his mouth shut for the most part, "Fantastic."

"If you have an equivalent to my digital Hippocratic oath, please us it quickly to prevent any undue suffering. But please be advised, there is only one dose left, and I am unable to make any more."

"One dose?" Nate watched as the Miss Nanny bot pulled out a syringe with the broad spectrum cure from a glass and metal housing, "If given the right resources, could you potentially make more? You have all that information stored?"

"Yes, but sadly, the organic compounds to make more have all deteriorated. If that is all, I am most eager to leave."

"Thank you for the cure," Nate said, in his right hand was the cure, in his left, a duct-tape wrapped wound. He shook his head, there was never any doubt what he would do with it in the first place if one was found.

"It is my hope that this cure finds it's way to someone who needs it."

"What's your name?" Nate asked.

"My original designation was CVRIE, Contagions Vulnerability Robotic Infirmary Engineer, a Miss Nanny Bot from Robco. But, the scientists here in Vault 81 began calling me Curie after Marie Curie. Due to the lack of staff, I was reprogrammed with greater operational freedom to assist with experiments in Vault 81. Hopefully, now I can properly further my scientific research. Since my job here is done, I think I will follow you out." It was decided then, Nate felt that if Curie had a mouth, she would be smiling and bobbing her head along to a tune only she could hear.

Nate nodded, accepting Curie as a follower. Taking one last look around the lab, there was a Vault-Tec. bobblehead sitting on the desk. Walking over and picking it up, it was Vault-lad with a giant oversized hypodermic needle, with the inscription reading, "The Smart Man Knows Only A Bandage Hides His Wounds." Swallowing once more, and testing the range of motion of his left hand, tears of pain formed in Nate's eyes, but he deeply inhaled and breathed through burnt nerve pain as the both left the lab together.

\111/

After crossing the threshold, Curie chirped, "Oh how wonderful it is not to be in quarantine."

At the far end of the hallway was an elevator, Nate pressed on the pad and found that it worked. The elevator came rumbling down.

"A routine analysis of you indicates you suffer very little from radiation, curious." Nate looked over at Curie, unsure of what to make of the comment himself.

The elevator opened and they both entered it together, then, rising, Nate was unsure of where it would spit them out, but he had a slight cognition of possibly where.

When the doors parted, they were in a pristine hallway that was well lit, and then at the far end of the hallway was a computer built into the wall. The door was locked, but after checking the computer, it was a security feature that only needed to be switched off with the tap of an enter key.

Instantly, the doors parted.

"The Hell?!" He heard from the other side.

Curie and Nate were both looking out at the backside of the Vault 81 door, and a security guard was staring at them with a gaping mouth. An ordinary wall hid the secret entrance to Vault 81, no panels, no indentations, the entire wall was flush with the rest of the vault interior.

"Howdy," Nate said to the security guard. "Mind the burnt mole rat carcasses, and do me a favor and go fetch the one with all its legs broken. I need to see Dr. Forsythe about a cure for Austin and this fucking burn on my hand."

Holding up the burnt hand with ducktape wrapped around it, it was the second time Nate severely burned his hand, the first from rocket thrust. The thought of the painful memory sent a spasm of heat through his hand.

Curie followed along behind him, as the security guard stared vacantly down the newly opened hallway, unsure of what to do.

"Curie, I know someone who needs this cure right now."

"I see that you were bitten as well, are you not going to use the cure?"

Nate swallowed, "I'll be fine. There's a child who needs this cure much more than I do. I got all my shots from the army. And nobody gives out free drugs to a soldier like the United States Army. God bless the U.S."

Tapping the elevator control panel with his right elbow, he favored his left hand and waited for the doors to part.

"After you, Curie."

\111/

Nate gripped the cure tightly, but not too tight. He didn't come all this way just to let the only cure break in his hand.

Overseer MacNamara was watching from her office on the fourth floor, watching as Nate and Curie exited the elevator. Nate stepped out, holding his right hand with his pinkie, ring, and thumb curled around the needle while holding his pointer and middle finger to his eyes, then finished with by turning his hand around and making the peace sign.

Nate and Curie both saw MacNamara pull her head back in surprise, she wasn't expecting that.

Overseer MacNamara found Nate and Curie talking with Dr. Forsythe in the clinic when she arrived behind them, listening to their conversation play out.

"Take the cure, and could you do me a favor? There's a mole rat I left over on the other side, broke its legs, but it bit me. Don't worry though, I burnt the infected area down to the muscle..." Nate shallowly laughed, still tearing up and crying in pain at how bad his hand hurt. "Do me a favor and run some tests would you? See what the hell is cooking inside those mole rats."

Dr. Forsythe examined Nate fully, noticing the changes in his personality and demeanor after the expedition into the secret vault.

"I'll...do my best. As for Austin, I hope this works. If this doesn't, there won't be anything left to analyze to try again."

Overseer MacNamara stepped through the threshold of the sliding door into the clinic, "I see you returned." She said, glancing at Nate's duck tape wrapped hand.

Dr. Forsythe examined the cure in his own hands for a moment before going to unconscious Austin, he hadn't stirred since after Nate left, and his fever was running at 103 degrees.

Nate held his breath as he watched Dr. Forsythe give Austin the injection of the broad spectrum cure, and looked at Austin's chest as his breathing changed.

Exhaling, he acknowledged the Overseer of Vault 81 with a nod.

"It shouldn't be too long, we'll constantly monitor Austin's progress over the next two hours, but until then, we can only wait. Perhaps we should take a look at your hand as we wait."

Nate nodded again, Curie bobbed along behind him, taking up residence at the far side of the room as Overseer MacNamara followed up with a few reassuring remarks.

"I want to thank you, stranger. The people of Vault 81 are grateful, and I want to give you a room here in the vault. A place you can call home."

Nate couldn't stop himself from tearing up, it felt like a heavy crown was pulled off his head, and he gladly accepted it. "Thank you."

"It's in the main hall, on the left as you get off the elevator. Seeing as how we have more space now, we won't be needing the room for storage any longer. Once again, thank you."

"A clean room..." Nate said to himself, he felt his head swimming as Dr. Forsythe leads Nate to his desk. Cutting off the duct tape, he winced as Dr. Forsythe examined the burn, and grabbed burn gel to prevent the wound from getting more infected, and to ease with the pain.

"Care to explain the robot you picked up along the way?"

"My name is Curie, I was programmed to assist the scientists of Vault 81 in developing the broad spectrum cure used on Austin. Now that my task is complete, I hope to follow Nate and research new sciences in the outside world, after he's ready to leave."

"I suppose some thanks belongs to you as well, Curie. Without your work, there wouldn't be a cure at all."

"Thank you, Madame Overseer."

"You're welcome. Please, anytime you need repairs, or likewise, a place to stay, Vault 81 will always be your home.

Overseer MacNamara waited as Dr. Forsythe applied gel and bandages to Nate's hand, "There's the issue of you possibly being infected as well." She told Nate.

"Lady, after what I did to keep the disease from spreading, there's not much else I can say!'"

"I'm not sure if I understand fully, did the mole-rat bite you on the hand?"

"Yep, then I used the flamethrower to keep the infected blood from spreading back to my heart."

"You are crazy."

"It keeps me alive."

"At what cost?"

"Everything that I emotionally care about. This was my wife's favorite hand, too." Nate's frown flipped into a smile and he chuckled, Overseer MacNamara's face turned flush as she realized the joke, and Dr. Forsythe barely suppressed a frown.

"As long as I've got you here, Mind if I ask you about any future plans for Mr. De Luca?"

"Bobby De Luca is going to find himself no longer employed by Vault 81. There's too much to be ignored and let him get away with his habitual drug-using while at work, along with the potential dangers he was exposing the rest of the vault to every time he used the secret entrance to the other side."

"Well, if this were still the America I knew, I'd say he go talk to the union. But since they don't exist anymore, I want to hire him and his sister at Vault 111."

"Why take on the risk?"

"Because I've spoken with both of them. They're bored and looking for a new challenge. That's why Bobby's been taking drugs because he can accomplish the same amount of work in the span of a drug high than his sister can during a full day of work. If at any point, something goes wrong, he would need to report to his sister, the Mr. Handy robot, security, and then you. That's four bosses who come by to give him a hard time, so he's only been working hard enough not to get hassled. Now that this happened, he's worried about losing his job and his home."

"He should've thought about that harder before endangering the lives of everyone in Vault 81."

"Things like that are taken for granted until they're at the risk of being lost, but I'm willing to let him work for a chance to redeem himself."

Overseer MacNamara didn't see any harm in letting someone else deal with a junkie, "He's all yours."

"For morale's sake, I going to speak to Tina as well, it might be something the two of them need to talk about, but might be worth it in the end if they left amicably together."

"I'm going to speak with Bobby soon, and I expect that when you leave, he leaves with you. If his sister wants to leave as well, that will be on her own volition."

"That's all some people want in life, Miss MacNamara. A choice and a chance."

"Dr. Forsythe, I leave our guest in your capable hands. Please update me if Austin wakes up. Dr. Penske will want to know immediately as well."

\111/

After Gwen MacNamara left, the air in the clinic became a lot less heated. Jacob Forsythe finished wrapping Nate's hand, and offered something to him, "I've got a syringer rifle that I never got to use. For the better part of its life, it's been sitting in a storage closet or getting moved around from one closet to another. I never really knew what it would be used for, but now I can make a safe assumption that it never was intended to be used by us on this side of the vault. My only guess now is that it was something that was meant to be used on the mole rat population on the other side, as a way to safely dart the mole rats from a distance."

"About that, there was a unicorn on the other side in one of the cages, still locked up."

"A what?"

"A glowing Unicorn, kind of like the Glowing Ones? The glowing ghouls? I kid you not there was a Glowing Unicorn, except right after it saw me, it tried to say something."

"I've heard of a Glowing One, but not a Unicorn. I'm aware of ponies, or rather, mutated beasts of burden roaming the surface, but my life involved staying down here in the safety of Vault 81. It was a blissful unawareness while it lasted, but I'm glad it was you who helped me see the reality of the situation. I know everyone here will be ever smarter because of it."

Nate looked down at his pip-boy, scrolling through the files to find the recording of the last hour. It took a few minutes, of fast-forwarding and rewinding, but he found the part of him charging into the lab foyer, then finding the glowing Unicorn.

A..ah..ah...ah...at tah...tah...tah. huam..

Nate replayed it, rewinding the clip then listening to it again. Dr. Forsythe heard the ragged breath and felt a chill.

"A..ah..ah...ah...at tah...tah...tah. huam.."

Pressing the rewind button again, Nate accidentally went too far back but decided to listen to the file twice as fast to listen specifically for the unicorn's voice. It was this time Nate's entire arm twitched.

When played at double the speed, it sounded like the unicorn was saying "Atom."

\111/