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** Vault 170 - The Wolf Vault**

Who would have thought a cup of tea could cause so much devastation...

The lights flickered on, Tom's Ears perked up and he lay his arm over his eyes. A yawn eventually escaped from his mouth. He opened his eyes to the blanket of grey that was the vault. After adjusting to the light he dragged his paws down his face. He sat up with an ear flopped down in a half asleep stupor. Stretching with another yawn he got out of bed ready to start his daily routine. He grabbed the cereal he kept in his room and put it on the table. While turning around to fetch a bowl he inadvertently knocked over the cereal with his tail. "Sigh, It's going to be one of those days isn't it, I can just feel it."

Without much thought he scooped up the cereal and started eating not even bothering to add milk. Not that the milk tasted good anyway. While munching away he stared at the box, V170 cereal, standard edition cereal handed out to everyone. A cartoon of the Vault-Pup holding up cereal with a smile. If only it tasted as good as you think it does kid, he thought. He couldn't help but wonder where all the food was coming from after all the vault had been sealed for a long time. I mean these vaults are advanced but they can't last forever. After a bowl of cereal, he got dressed, ready to start the day off.

Tom barely set foot out his door when a familiar voice struck his ears "Oh hey Tom!" said Ricky who was leaning on the wall. Tom gave him an odd glance "skulking around outside people's rooms again?" he said with a raised eyebrow and a grin. Ricky raised his arm "I was waiting for you, you mong" lightly slapping Tom on the back of his head.

Tom laughed "So how ya doin man?" Ricky sighed "Getting bored of this, I didn't envision my life being stuck in a metal box, Also I don't think I'm allowed in the gym anymore" he said with a snigger. Tom looked at him "Please say you did not mess with the weight machines again." Ricky laughed "You should have seen Michael's face, when he tried to pick up the weights it was so heavy I think he shat himself." Tom giggled "Hah! That will show him for last week. But still, just be careful dude, Jenny is at breaking point with us and the last thing you want to do is annoy the head of security here. There's no hiding from her."

Ricky sighed "I don't think Jenny likes Michael either but I suppose if there was trouble we would have nowhere to run from her." Tom looked around at the walls "Yeah well until the outside is not an irradiated shithole we are stuck in here with Jenny, Micheal and all. The overseer has still deemed it as unsafe to set foot outside of the vault."

Tom looked at his Pipboy "Shit were starting to run late, let's get to the IT suite" Ricky reluctantly started walking. "So how's the new programme coming?" asked Tom. Ricky replied "Slow, I compiled all the code but it keeps locking up when I run the activation script for the new code." Ricky's ears fell flat in annoyance "I have no idea why, it's like the code hates me". Tom shrugged "Well don't look at me I deal with the admin work and the hardware, not the coding." Ricky replied "Yeah I do all the real work and you get the rewards, like that Pipboy" he said pointing at Tom's arm. Tom turned to face Ricky "Hey I have to deal with all the shit the others bring and if something goes wrong it's on me, not you, you don't have to deal with people, you have it easy...". Ricky shook his head "Yeah, yeah I was just yanking your chain."

They both arrived at their work place which was an ICT suite with 30 odd computers in a room. The room was networked to a server in a room next door. The whole facility was connected up to this main server which Tom and Ricky are in charge of keeping it running smoothly.

However due to a lack of parts Thomas had found the need to start improvising with some of the equipment that he was using to be able to cover for the equipment that was breaking around him. The vault was well equipped but some components inside the computers had started to fail over time and it only had a limited supply to keep them running.

This was becoming worrying because if the server was to slow down or give in, it would mean that the entire vault network would be out of action. Whatever genius designed the place made all of its utilities run off the server. Which would mean if the server went down the reactor and air system would switch to backup systems. The backup systems are only rated to run for 7 days before failing. After that the vault would have about 2 days to survive before it ran out of oxygen and power. The vault door is powered. So if the power failed they would be sealed in, left gasping on the last remaining scraps of oxygen in the vault.

Tom put down his coat and walked into the server room. What he saw made his heart skip a beat. The server Status lights were flashing orange meaning that even though it was running there was something wrong on the system.

Green =working normally, Yellow=Minor error, orange= major error, red=critical error.

"Oh shit." Tom said staring at the lights "RICKY!", after a second Ricky replied from the other room "Yeah?", Tom ran his paw over the light "We have an orange". Ricky walked into the room "Aah shit, I was worried about just having a yellow today..."

Tom quickly jumped onto the server's terminal and started running the diagnostic software for the server. He did a quick ping to all virtual servers which all replied thankfully. He checked each server individually to find that they were all still running. "Well it doesn't look like a software error, so you're ok I think, err just stick around encase there is anything on the software side." Ricky sighed "Sure, Ill log on this machine then, just means I have to sit next to your fat ass" he said with a smirk, as he moved to a spare computer in the server room.

Tom went back to the main server and opened up the server diagnostic software which was almost complete scanning the system. A loud ping was heard from the terminal, it showed a red exclamation mark. He opened up the warning to find out that a small power surge had taken out some of the ram and one of the hard drives. "Fuck, this is not what we need." Ricky hearing this turned his head around "You found what's wrong?" Tom put his hands through his fur and leaned back "Yeah failed hard drive and ram, and we don't have any sodding hard drives left because we had basically no stock of them to start with." Tom balled up his fists and slammed them on the desk "These drives were supposed to last a few lifetimes over dammit!"

Ricky looked at the servers "Damn server, you would think that they would leave spares, maybe they hid them in something else or something." Tom lifted his head "Ricky you're a genius! we may not have spares but we do have other computers we can salvage. These computers here use enterprise hard drives!" Ricky cocked his head "Will they fit?" Tom nodded "Yeah they use the same interface and controllers."

He half jogged out the room and a few minutes later walked in with one of the computers from the vault and some spare Ram from a store cupboard. He immediately set about dismantling the machine to get the computer components from within it. These computers were built to last so getting the components out was a big task. It took him the rest of the morning to get them out. It didn't help that his big paws got in the way making it harder for him to reach in the machine.

After he had got the components that he needed, he turned off the server temporarily and got the components swapped out. Thankfully the server booted up fine again and started functioning as usual. The server showed alot of general errors on it though thanks to the incident. Thomas let out a sigh of relief "Well it's done and running again! Woo!" Ricky turned around from his machine "damn that's a relief. Also I've done some research into our stock and we were not actually given any spare Hard drives for the server." Thomas looked up confused "Really?" Ricky still staring at his screen said "Yeah, according to this the supplies were not delivered, but get this the order was cancelled by vault-Tec themselves. When I try open the file it says I am not authorised? But I'm an Admin. Hmm, well I doubt Vault-Tec exist anymore so I'm going to try crack this file open and see what's up."

Tom glanced at his desk and spied his mug. "Yeah you do that, I am in desperate need of a cup of tea after all of this." Ricky didn't even reply he was already glued to his monitor tapping away, taking a crack at the locked file.

Tom grabbed his mug and headed for the door. Walking through the corridors he looked at up at all the machinery. The roof was lined with wires and lighting reminding him on how much the vault relied on their network running smoothly, a real design flaw come to think of it. One more failure like that and boom the whole vault is out. "I hope the vault door isn't tied to all of this, because if it is and the server goes tits up, well we are screwed." Tom thought out loud.

Tom walked into the canteen and was greeted by the general noise of the other Vault dwellers. A lot of smiling faces, laughing and chatting. Carrying on as normal without the faintest clue something bad just happened.

Tom sat down at the counter where he waited for the Mr Handy to serve him. A robot voice chimed in "What can I do for you sir." Tom looked up confused "what the...? You're not Mr Chef..." In front of Tom a different robot than usual was floating in place, a lot less friendly looking Mr Handy. Tom sighed again "Great just what I needed, Direct order where is Mr Chef" The robot responded "I am Mr Handy Mk III, Mr Chef is in the repair bay, How may I help you?" Ricky looked at the robot with a bit of suspicion, why would they replace Mr Chef with a utility Mr Handy. "Order who gave you the command to assume this post?" Mr handy responded "This is an order of Vault-Tec protocol." Tom replied "Order why was a utility Mr Handy chosen?" The robot responded "Access denied."

Tom thought to himself, oh I can't be bothered with this shit. "Fine just make me a cup of tea." Mr Handy took a minute to respond "Error, I'm Sorry Mr Chef is in charge of food and drink." Tom clenched his fists "You're the replacement for chef by order of fucking Vault-Tec, DIRECT ORDER make me a god damn cup of tea!" Mr Handy floated there for a minute "Order received, beginning task..."

Tom rubbed his face, the quicker this day ends the better he thought to himself. Tom was about to check his pip boy when he suddenly heard something, a whirring that picked up speed very quickly. Tom immediately recognised the sound glanced up to see Mr Handy going towards him with its sawblade.

Tom quickly jumped to the right as a sawblade shot past him. "AAAAAH!" tom landed with a thud, the other vault members started to panic as the robot did this. Tom rolled onto his back to see the sawblade heading for him, he quickly rolled to the left. The sawblade sliced the edge his Right arm and went into the floor. Tom grabbed the robots arm and yelled "QUICK GRAB HIS OTHER ARMS!" Some other vault members quickly piled onto the robot to subdue it. As soon as it was pinned to the ground Tom opened up an access panel and hit the power switch of the Mr Handy. It powered down and fell limp on the floor.

Tom rolled off the robot onto the floor panting, heart racing. He felt his arm and looked at his paw to see it had blood dripping off it. One of the other Vault members gave him a hand up and checked on him "Are you okay? You should get to the medical bay." Tom grabbed his arm and winced. "No I need to get to the overseer's office now." Holding his arm, he ran towards the overseer office smacking into walls as he went.

He burst into the office startling the overseer in the process. The Overseer shouted "What in the hell is the meaning of this". Tom yelled back "ONE OF THE ROBOTS TURNED ON US! HE TRIED TO KILL ME!" the overseer suddenly alarmed said "What!" Tom took a second to catch his breath "A Mr Handy Mk III tried to kill me after I gave it an order to make me some tea, we managed to pin it down and disable it." Tom let go of his wound "Look! He did this to me." He immediately grabbed the wound again. The overseer quickly grabbed some bandages out of his desk and wrapped up Tom's wound. The overseer walked to the window overseeing the vault "Why would a robot turn on us? they should have failsafe's!" after a second of thought "And what was a Mr Handy doing in the kitchen? They are not designed for kitchen work..." Tom raised his hands up "No idea, All I got out of the robot that it was Vault Tech Protocol."

The overseer spun around and raised an eyebrow "Vault tech? But that means.... No it can't be."

The overseer thought for a few seconds "Vault personnel safety is our main concern here, so what we need to do is..." Suddenly Ricky burst through the door "I've got urgent ne... What happened to your arm Tom!?" Tom looked at Ricky "A Mr handy that's what." A look of pure dread washed over Ricky's face "A Mr handy did that?!" Tom replied "Yeah it wanted to kill me!" Ricky grabbed his ears "NO NO NO, SHIT SHIT SHIT"

The overseer grabbed Ricky "Calm down! What do you know?" Ricky looked up "I cracked the file, The Vault's robots are programmed to turn on us as soon as they are forced to do another job, we need to..." " AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" A blood curdling scream was heard from outside. The overseer's ears perked up and he immediately ran towards a cupboard, pulled out a key and opened it. The contents of the cupboard were deadly. He threw Thomas and Ricky a laser Rifle, while grabbing two laser pistols for himself.

The Overseer hit the alarm button on his console and shouted into the intercom "All personal disable nearby robots immediately by any means necessary." Suddenly screams were being heard everywhere. The three of them saw a flash of light from the window. They all ran to the window to look out of it. What they saw would be burned into their memories forever. A Mr Gutsy set its burners on full blast burning everyone in sight, someone tried to get it from behind but in a shower of blood it cut the persons arm off with its sawblade.

A Securitron burst through the Overseers door and fired a shot at the overseer, he managed to jump behind his desk and dodge out the way. The Overseer, Thomas and Ricky opened fire onto the Securitron killing it within seconds of opening fire. The overseer ran to the door to be greeted by a hot blast of plasma that rushed past him as he was suddenly in line of sight with a Mr Handy. He fired back when another blast of plasma singed his leg. He quickly shut the door and blasted its edges to weld it shut.

The overseer limped over the console where he pushed a button underneath it. The entire console platform raised up into the air revealing a tunnel. "Quick in here it leads to the vault door" He quickly pushed the intercom "If you can make it try get to the Vault door!" The three of them ran down the tunnel and came out the secret tunnel by the vault door. "Cover me while I open the door" Ricky and Thomas ran to either side of the entrance to the vault corridors while the overseer ran to the vault door control panel.

He started frantically pushing buttons. A Securitron walked into the corridor causing Thomas and Ricky to open fire. They managed to kill it before it got a shot off. An alarm started going off and they heard a grinding noise from behind them as the Vault door slowly started to open. The overseer Yelled "Hold them off while this thing opens, it takes a minute!"

Jenny walked backwards into the corridor firing off blasts from her pistol before running towards Tom and Ricky. As she ran a Securitron walked into the tunnel and fired a shot off which missed Tom, Jenny and Ricky. A scream of pain was heard from behind them"AAAAH! It hurts!" The overseer fell to the ground, he had been hit.... Thomas and Ricky opened fire and killed the second Securitron. "Are you okay!?" shouted Ricky, "I'm fine, the door is open, go!" Jenny ran to the overseer "You are not okay!". The overseer pulled out his guns reloading them with the last of his ammo. "Go! And don't give me that sentimental bullcrap of I'm not going without you, I can't move so I will cover you, NOW GO!"

A Mr Gutsy floated into the corridor and started firing hot Plasma. The overseer hit a button on the console again and shouted, "I can't let the robots escape!" The overseer coughed up blood and a look of determination crossed his face, he aimed his weapons for the last time, opening fire.

They heard the alarms go off again as well as a loud screeching. Ricky, Tom and Jenny Legged it to the door, sprinting through. Tom looked back to see the Vault door closing. The three of them got to the entrance of a cave where the Vault resided out of breath, hurt and terrified.

Ricky sunk down to the ground "Oh god... FUCK!" he said grabbing his head. Jenny fell to the floor and threw up. Tom looked at him and then Jenny between gasps of breath. He turned around and walked forward to a cliff edge. "Holy shit... we are in London..." Not knowing what to do Tom sat down on the cliff.

Hours passed....

After some thought Tom realised they needed to move on to survive so he decided to take lead. "We need to keep moving to survive." He walked over to the others and helped them up.

They all stared at the city or well what was left of it.

The view was breath-taking.

Story by: Thomas Henn (Wolfmantom)

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