Vault-Tec
From the Vault-Tec Archive Terminal
The Quantum's began to notice that all clocks and calendars found within the vault always read correctly as one would expect when living day to day, but their Pip~Boy devices always seemed to have jumped a month ahead after having woken from their sleep. Weldon, the Mr. Handy unit that was preprogrammed to call the Quentin’s “Quantum’s” since day one, would often say very odd things like "Oh, you're finally awake! I was beginning to get bored after all this time". The Quantum's would often laugh it off as if an exaggeration while replying "Come on Weldon, a nights sleep isn't that long".
Mrs. Quantum’s plants would appear to grow at a significant rate every time she checked them and other small but similar situations would give reason to speculate something was afoot. Dom would also have very vivid dreams about being in a nuclear West Virginia, California and other places he used to visit, but thought this was due to stress about what may be occurring on the surface. At first, these oddities were simply brushed off as just weird things, but slowly they began to fester as things reoccurred like an itch just out of reach.
It wasn't until Dom decided to stay up passed the vault suggested curfew to tinker with a mod he had been fiddling with for the T60 armor in the vaults workshop, that he would finally discover the true devious and cunning vault experiment. The dormitories were outfitted with specialized cryochambers that were styled in the fashion of scientific beds (much smaller and unsuspecting than the cryochambers found in Vault 111). When Dom finally decided to go to sleep, he'd find the beds had initiated a freeze protocol with each family member laying unsuspectingly suspended in time, only to then be thaw out a month later.
Dom spent the following month in a state of anxiety and other emotions while overthinking how to process this discovery. It was also noticed that Weldon would enter a secret protocol or secondary mode that heavily focus on maintaining a clean and orderly vault with the purpose of making it appear that a month had not passed. This also included tending to Natures garden and readjusting all the clocks and calendars among other tasks.
When the rest of the family came out of cryostasis, Dom explained that he determined they had unknowingly been awake for only 6.5 years out of the 200 years that had passed outside on the surface. After lengthy discussions, it was decided they would open the vault, but found that the console to the vault door was not being powered. Dom, however had a backup plan that birthed during the month of sheer panic. The powerful thudding once heard as super hero parade like entertainment for River, was now charging full speed towards the vault door. Dom in his T60 power armor, that now was inscribed with "Vault Breaker" across the chest plate, was attempting to pull the gear shaped door off its tracks. However, even with a superior built suit, which Dom did not poses, he would not have be able to budge the immense weight of a vault door.
While Dom fought with the vault door. River, now just 11 months old by this time and still learning to walk, had been sitting at the foot of the vault console watching her father struggle in delight. In an attempt to mimic him, she propped herself up against the leg of the console stand and unknowingly pulled a clunky lever underneath the panel as she reached upwards to for support. Lights on the console began to illuminate and flash as it came to life!
Upon activation, Dom received a message on his Pip-Boy. A new Overseer document had been made available and it outlined yet another secret of the Vault. The lever that River activated would disarm the cryo-beds and all attached cryostatis protocols, leaving them to function as regular beds and in turn this would provide power to the vault door operating systems.
- Page 3 of 4 -