FOREWORD This story is a fan fiction imagining of one possible story from the Fallout Universe by Bethesda Software, a collection of Books, Games, and other media (including Fallout 1, 2, 3, Tactics, New Vegas, 4, Shelter, and 76.) This story is in no way relates to existing characters, nor is it assumed to be part of the lore of the original aforementioned media. This is a fan story from the mind of Marcus Liotta.
All writing Copyright (C) Marcus Liotta 2022.
-Marcus Liotta
Release Details
The story will be published as a series, weekly for each chapter. Follow the site/blog to catch up as it is distributed. Each post will be titled “Protectron # – Chapter” for your convenience in search.
HOME – Published on the site 10/22/2023
DREAM INTERRUPTED – Publishing on the site 10/26/2023
NEW BEGINNINGS – Publishing on the site 11/02/2023
ALIVE – Publishing on the site 11/09/2023
TRUTH – Publishing on the site 11/16/2023
PROTECTRON
A Short Story by Marcus Liotta
TRUTH
Eventually Darwin found a place to sleep, he opened an air-vent with a knife and closed the vent behind himself, crawling into it a short distance before finally allowing fatigue to take him into the blackness of sleep.
Dreams.
She was there.
She was always there waiting for him, asking him, “why won’t you help us.”
“Sandra!” he cried out, screaming to his wife that he was coming to save them all, if only he could find them!
“It’s too late,” she said, “you left me to die!”
Darwin woke in a terrible sweat, the dream feeling so real although he couldn’t recall where he was in the dream. It was dark, and yet so familiar.
Once again he was in the ventilation ducts and he quickly realized he was sweating for a reason. The heat had kicked on and was sweltering, practically roasting him inside the ventilation shaft he had crawled into for safety.
Though Darwin at first was shook by this event, he began wondering what the underground facility would feel like if there was no heating element, if instead it merely turned to natural temperatures.
He could only assume it would be a frigid hellscape.
Grasping the metal shielding on the ventilation duct with both hands, he slowly pushed.
Carefully he took off the grate and listened for the robot.
He waited a minute or so, cautiously and quietly pulling himself out of the wall-vent and letting out a silent sigh of relief.
It was out there somewhere.
One way or another Darwin had to escape this horrid place. Thinking carefully of his next course of action, he realized it would be wise to check the vault handler’s logs, some called them a benign and strange name, over something. Didn’t matter, the title of one man versus another meant nothing if few were left alive to care.
That room however, it might have more details, logs on the computer to sift through and dissect what had gone down in this terrible place.
With little option remaining, Darwin crept about, keeping his footsteps quiet as could be with the cloth wrapped around his boots.
The corridors were dark.
Those few lights that illuminated the hallways buzzed with persistence, however most had gone out or erupted from use some time before.
Metal grating covered much of the floor, allowing liquid to escape into some deeper drainage well.
Darwin dared not breathe too loudly, fearful that any wrong step or inhalation might tip off the robot seeking to destroy him.
A slight tingling sensation ran down his back, gave him a sense of dread and yet it was merely a bead of sweat. No matter how he tried to register the darkness as absent of threat, in his mind Darwin fought the strongest desire to scream.
Eventually he stopped in a hallway with an intersection. Before him was a large door, one that would normally be locked but in this case it was left slightly open, a sliding door that made little sense beyond the damage it sustained from forced entry.
Someone had already visited the operations room.
A single large fluorescent light buzzed above the intersection, illuminating the oval shaped door just as it spat shadows in all directions. To the right, he could see some fifteen feet before reaching a crate sitting in the hallway, it was the last of his vision.
To his left, there was only a metal tunnel of a corridor, and then finally darkness.
Swallowing his fear, Darwin crept up to the door, looking behind him and carefully pushing his body sideways through the crevice that should have been connected. Metal door on metal enclosure, pried open with something heavy as he could see the metal scratched on both sides.
Getting through the claustrophobic space was quick and yet felt like an eternity, all the while Darwin envisioned himself being crushed like a spider, or pulled out by the leg when that wretched robot caught him from behind.
Thankfully, it was all his imagination.
Inside the operations room, the chief room of the vault, there was a circular desk and also computer screens lining one wall. On those screens, he could see cameras, many of them were offline but some still showed the images of what transpired in their wing of the facility.
He couldn’t see the robot, although it may be in a sector where one of the cameras was offline.
What troubled Darwin was not the lack of video, but rather, two of the television screens were broken, one still had a hammer stuck in it.
Darwin blinked.
He realized this meant, there was someone else out there after all. Someone who might be looking for help just as he was, or even, perhaps they were dangerous.
With a shaking hand, Darwin carefully reached out and ever so carefully, so as not to disturb the glass, picked up the hammer by it’s wooden handle. He looked it over, a round nose and the back a more traditional claw for prying things apart.
“Could be useful,” he thought to himself.
Darwin found himself behind the vault-master’s computer, at the circular desk. He tried one password after another and it never let him in.
ACCESS DENIED.
ACCESS DENIED.
ACCESS DENIED.
The words kept running across the screen until finally he thought of something ingenious. The last operations password he had in the military, maybe that would work.
He tried it, and it let him in!
“Strange,” Darwin thought to himself.
It wasn’t normal for the military to keep using a password for so many years. He sifted through the file lists and noticed something in one of the log paths.
The file was titled very simply.
I MESSED UP.
He entered into the data file and began reading, although, after a few sentences it was hard to go on.
The entry read;
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I didn’t mean to do it.
They injected me with something, I don’t know what it is but it keeps making everything hard to remember. Makes me angry for no reason.
I had no idea this was possible, that they could experiment on us in here and even then, that it could hurt everyone we care about.
Whatever they did I can’t undo it. I’m going to tell the robot I’m sick, that it needs to keep me secured. Otherwise, I’m just a risk to anyone who might come in here after us.
Us.
That’s funny.
There’s no one left.
After that stupid doctor injected me in the arm, I ran inside and kicked a security officer over. They had a few others come over and try to restrain me but whatever that doctor injected made me strong, strong enough to take on four of them at once.
Took one of their guns and held them at a distance, warned them not to come after me.
Before they could recover, I slapped the emergency lock on the main vault doors. Could hear everyone scream at me, pounding on the massive door as if they could somehow get inside without appeasing me.
I didn’t care.
Left them there to rot.
Months later, when I finally came to and realized what I had done, I went to see the damage.
Wish I hadn’t.
They were all dead. Starved to death or dehydrated. Found Sandra out there even, know it was her because of those auburn curls and that cute red ribbon in her hair…
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Darwin couldn’t read anymore.
He realized what it all meant.
Darwin slowly opens the drawers in the desk and as he opens one, a glimmer shines up from it.
A handgun sat there, looked to be loaded.
Unable to take it anymore, he folded up, face into hands as tears streamed out.
He was alone.
All of this was his own doing and for years he was too scared to end his own life after what he had done, after he murdered them all.
He must have gone insane. The robot might be malfunctioning but he was in the medical bay under high dosages of medication for a reason.
Seems that robot always eventually catches him.
Dopes him up.
Then somehow, he escapes.
“But,” Darwin thought to himself, “that won’t happen again.”
Darwin sat upright in the chair, looking at the weapon that lay within arm’s reach.
For a long while he simply stared at the pistol. Its glinting metal smiled back at him under the dim buzz of electric lights.
He knew what had to be done.
It was his only escape.
Somewhere in the vault, the robot’s gears whirred and its metal footsteps moved with a sluggish but heavy weight.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
All at once its sensors went off.
The crack of an explosion echoed throughout the underground bunker’s corridors, a noise so loud it was impossible to miss.
The Robot pivoted on it’s trek and sought to locate the event.
It paused there, gears whirring.
It’s logical processor finally came to a decision.
The sound came from the northern sector, a loud roaring noise that the robot was programmed to go investigate.
It began moving again.
The red siren on the robot’s head blared to life, and a speaker on it erupted into a noisy crackling monologue.
It was on repeat yet again.
“STAY WHERE YOU ARE. DANGER! DUCK AND COVER! DANGER!”
With a slow gait, it began moving off in the direction of the noise. Only the sounds of its own robotic feet on metal floor could be heard, and eventually even those dissipated.
All that remained was silence.
And the Darkness, it became an eternity.
THE END
if (DJ, Hacker & Author = Dark Fantasy, SciFi){copyright ©2024} 