Ch 5: The Last Will + Testament of Dr. Isaac Astor

Chapter 4: A Girl Out of Time

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I couldn’t look away. My eyes were glued to the screen like a brain-dead lobotomite. I stared at the television, completely entranced, as the man walked out of the frame and the message set to play again. I’d heard of moving pictures before, but the closest I’d ever come was an old slide projector full of military specs and training materials. I looked over at Ilya, almost expecting her to be just as amazed as I was, but instead, she was smiling like a kid on Saturday morning, just waiting for her favorite program to begin. It was in that moment that it struck me how far away from home she really was.

“…Ilya,” the man spoke again and the smile stretched even wider over her face. 

“It’s him, it’s my father! I knew it, I knew he wouldn’t leave me all alone!” She cranked up the volume just as the message began again.

The man stepped back into the frame, much clearer than before. He was in his late fifties, and even though he was wearing a white lab coat and those thick Nuka-bottle glasses that had a way of making all scientists look like giant bloatflies, it was the look in those sullen bloodshot eyes that gave him away for what he really was.

I’d seen that same look every day in the mirror for the past three months. It was a look full of regret, beat down and defeated, maybe even a little self-loathing. It was the look of a broken man.

“My daughter, I am sorry, but if you are hearing this, then I am already dead.” The girl’s smile quickly faded as the last hope for her father vanished before her very eyes.

“Please don’t be distraught, I’ve known this was coming for a long time. We all have a part to play, and now, this is mine. At the very least I can leave you this message, to help prepare you for the trials ahead.” 

“There are things you don’t know, that you must understand. The world as you knew it wasn’t all that it seemed. I… am not all that I seem. I wish I had more time to tell you everything, wish I had been honest in the first place, but I was a fool and thought I could do it all myself. I realize now I was just being selfish. I wanted to keep you safe from all the terrible realities of this world, but now I’ve only left you unprepared for the next.” His voice wavered as he spoke, tears threatening to spill from his eyes. 

“All of this, everything that’s happened, it all comes down to one thing: Project Omega.” 

“It was our vision, mine and Braun’s. All of Vault-Tec’s research was leading up to it, the final solution to the apocalypse and the wasteland it would leave behind. It was to be my greatest achievement, my legacy, but little did I know what he was willing to do… the kind of people he was willing to work with… 

“I’d known since the beginning that Braun was taking money from some unsavory characters. Foreign governments looking for favors, millionaires wanting their own post-apocalyptic accommodations, even the covert communist after the odd weapon or power source, but none of them compared with… the Order.” 

“They came at a time when we needed them most. Our research was failing, and we owed money to almost everyone. The government was threatening to pull our funding, and our investors were the kind of people that did not tolerate excuses, nor left any loose ends. But then they came… the men in suits. They brought with them seemingly endless amounts of cash, but more than that, they gave us access to technologies we’d never seen before, perhaps not even of this earth. It expedited our research tenfold, and we realized a sustainable solution was within our grasp, but it all came at a terrible price. I soon found myself loosing control of my own project, and Braun, so eager to appease our new financiers, found new and horrifying ways to make me question my very humanity.”

“It became clear that we were no longer safe from their greed or lust for power. It was then that I began planning for this day, when I dedicated myself to understanding and fighting these men, this Order of the Algorithm, at every turn. I betrayed my friends and colleagues, became a spy in my own company. I sacrificed everything, my very life, to make sure you survived to hear this message.” 

“The Conduit, Ilya. The Omega Vault cannot operate without it. I stole it that night, hid it away, but I knew it wasn’t safe. I knew they would come looking for it one way or another, so I entrusted it to a friend, someone who will be able to help you on your way no matter how much time has passed. The vault is capable of great things, but in the wrong hands, it is a power more devastating than all the atomic bombs combined. But I’ve already stayed too long… they are coming for me. For now, all I can offer you is this…” And the man’s voice lowered to a deadly whisper, but each word was spoken with a deliberate and urgent purpose. 

“Follow the light, for it alone can illuminate the truth from the darkness, and lay your path bare for you to see. But beware my child, for the light you shine may reveal more than you are prepared to know.”

“My daughter, I’m sorry, but I must leave this to you. You must get to the vault before they do. There is no other choice. Once you wake, I fear they will come for you, and not even time can stand in their way. Whether it has been ten years, a hundred, or a thousand… they will come for you.”

“Please, just remember that everything I’ve done, everything I’ve sacrificed, that I did it for you. I love you.”

“Goodbye, butterfly.”

The recording ended and suddenly switched back to the “Please Stand By” screen. We sat there, in complete silence, for what felt like an eternity. 

I looked over at the girl. She sat frozen, tears streaming down her face as she stared unblinkingly at the screen. It was a hell of a lot to take in, I could hardly believe it myself. I’d always thought Vault-Tec was nothing more than a bunch of sadistic assholes who enjoyed fooling innocent people into walking unwittingly to their deaths. After all this time, I never once thought that there might be an actual purpose to all of their mad experiments and mutant monstrosities.

I reached over to turn off the television, but the girl smacked my hand away and looked at me as if I had just spat on her father’s grave.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She said, “There might be more, s-something we missed. That… that can’t be it, it can’t be! Who is this friend supposed to be? What did he mean “the light” would show me the way? Oh, what am I supposed to do, father, tell me what to do!” She banged on the television until something broke inside it. The screen sparked and it blinked into oblivion, before a thick black smoke began pouring out the back.

The girl paced around the room, mumbling madly to herself as she repeated the mysterious phrase over and over. Just as I was beginning to think she had finally cracked under the pressure, I caught sight of that pearly grin and a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

“This… this is just so incredible, I can hardly believe it! I mean, where do we even begin?” She said as she wiped away the tears. "All I keep thinking is that there has to be more, something he’s not telling me. He was standing in his study, that much I could tell, so that’s where we should look first, right? We should investigate the scene and see what we can find out about this Order of the Algorithm. Do you know how to get to uptown?” She turned to me, and I suddenly realized what she was saying.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa kid! What’s all this “we” stuff?" I said as I got to my feet. "Look, I’m sorry about your old man and all, but I’ve got enough heat on me as it is. The last thing I need right now is to run off on another damn treasure hunt. I’ve already had my fill of that today, thanks.”

“But… didn’t you hear him? This isn’t just any vault Mr. Burns, this is the vault! Don’t you get it? This could save countless lives, it could save the world!” 

I laughed.

“A little late for that dontcha think?” I said as I waved my hand out the window. “Where do you suppose we start? The radiation? The raiders? Oh, I know! How about we teach Super Mutants the power of love and kindness so we can all sit around the campfire and sing Kum-ba-yah? Wake up sweetheart, this world’s beyond repair, probably wasn’t worth saving in the first place.”

“How can you be so cold?” She said angrily, “My father died for this, I have the right to know what happened to him at the very least! Besides, can’t you imagine what this is capable of? All the good it could do?” 

“Oh please, that sounds like just another empty Vault-Tec promise to me. Anyway, he also said it was dangerous. Aren’t you afraid the evil Order is going to come after you?”

“Not really,” she said as she shrugged, “My father had always been a bit… eccentric, and when it came to me in any case. I was all he had left after my mom died and growing up as sick as I was, he’d always been overprotective of me. Honestly, if it were up to him I never would have left the house without a dozen bodyguards in tow. But it’s been over two hundred years, if the Order was going to come after me, don’t you think they would have done it by now? I mean, if someone like you could do it, then I doubt they were really that determined in the first place.”

“Look, if you just take me to my father’s house, I can show you this is real. Please, Jacob... I can’t do this without you.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This all had to be one bad dream. Any minute now, I’d wake up in my hotel room with a nasty hangover and a vow to shoot whoever spiked my drink last night. She had to be out of her mind if she thought I was about to babysit her while she went off playing adventurer like the heroine of some cheap Grognak knockoff. Well, this ain’t no game of Dungeons and Deathclaws girly, this is real life.

“So let me get this straight,” I said as I rubbed at the headache forming behind my eyes. “You want me to run halfway across the Commonwealth in search of some ancient treasure that will “save the world” from an evil Order that no one’s even heard of, and you’re going to accomplish this by solving a two-hundred-year-old murder case, all without a single clue to go on… Did I catch all that?”

“Mr. Burns, I know this all sounds impossible, but I trust my father more than anything, and he’s counting on me to do this. He was a brilliant man and I know he has a plan, besides, we aren’t talking about some common vault, this is the very salvation of mankind! You can’t honestly turn your back on that, can you?”

“Oh yes, I can!” I shouted, “First thing tomorrow morning, I’m taking you to Diamond City, and that’s that.” I shoved past her and took up a spot near the stairs, where I laid down for the night.  

“But…” She protested.

“But nothing! Get some sleep, it’s going to be a long walk tomorrow. Trust me, it'll be safe for you in the city, no ancient evil or anything. Once you see what it’s really like out there, you’ll thank me for this.”

She glared as if she wanted to give me a swift kick down the stairs, but she settled for cursing me under her breath instead. She grabbed the gun off of the couch and begrudgingly handed it over to me. I laughed and waved it away. 

“Keep it,” I said, “I’ve got another right here, did you really think I only carried one weapon?” I smiled as I lifted my shirt to show her the gun still at my side.

“Oh, and the one in your hand? It's been out of bullets the entire time.” 

And with that, I rolled over and closed my eyes, relishing that last look of indignant disbelief on her face before finally drifting off to sleep.