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First Annual Pod Day
WHERE: Vault 66
WHEN: ???? - Day 1
WHAT: The first pods open
WARNINGS:TBD
You awake laying on your back in an, admittedly comfortable, pod. You can't move anything but your eyes, can't even feel your body yet. How you got here or why is a blank. You may have been in the middle of your day, asleep, or even- for what you remember- should be dead. Then a screen directly in front of your face flickers to life and in crisp, black and white displays: DON'T PANIC. The following video then plays:
The screen flickers again and reads: CONGRATULATIONS ON PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE! WELCOME TO VAULT LIFE, CITIZEN. WELCOME TO YEAR: [ERROR]. YOUR PERSONAL BELONGINGS ARE LOCATED IN [FILE CORRUPTED. SEE SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR]. ENJOY YOUR STAY AND THANK YOU FROM YOUR FRIENDS AT VAULT-TEC.
The pod then unseals and you are able to, unstably at first, climb out of the pod. Your body may feel foreign for a moment- perhaps entirely foreign if you suddenly find yourself a human, ghoul, or super mutant for the first time. But whatever your form, you have two items on: a bright blue jumpsuit with the number 66 in yellow on the back, and a mechanical device known as a Pip-boy sealed onto your arm. If you click on the buttons it takes you to an instruction screen.
You look around to find yourself in a room of other pods. Some are just opening, other people looking as confused as you climbing out. Others remain closed with the status of 'STASIS' on the screens attached to the pods. The rest of the room is less than impressive. Computer systems that seem out of place compared to the technology level of the pods are scattered across the room, apparently running the chambers. Trying to access them, even for the most talented hacker, will simply result in SEE OVERSEER being displayed. There is large metal door leading to the rest of the vault, a lever on the wall next to it that will cause it to open.
Welcome, dweller, to vault 66.
Outside of the pod room, the rest of the vault is limping along on an emergency power supply. The air is stale from lackluster recycling and deep shadows occupy the corners of rooms and edges of hallways as only the pale maintenance lighting flickers from the ceiling. The pip-boy flashlight helps, but can still only light up a small area, casting anything outside of it into even darker shadows.
In those shadows there is skittering. The noise isn't too noticeable when there are groups of people, but get down to one or two and it's impossible to ignore. Venture into an empty room and you’ll spot a small number, maybe even just one, loitering in what, until today, had more or less been their sole domain: radroaches. Giant, mutated cockroaches that have a hunger for fresh food (like say, new vault dwellers) when it’s available.
The majority of roaches, however, seem to have a destination in mind, mostly ignoring characters unless blocked or directly bothered. This hoard, gathering from all over the vault, all move through the shadows and vents to the kitchen. If a character is unthreatening enough, they can follow the trail unmolested by the creatures.
In the kitchen itself is a whole different matter. Even from down the hall, characters can hear a masculine, slightly French-accented voice exclaim:
“Mais! Get out, out you nasty things!”
After a moment, a burst of flame can be seen through the door, followed by the new yet distinctive sound of mandibles ripping at metal. Those that decide to enter will see over a dozen roaches trying to take down a lone, floating robot. Despite the robot occasionally hitting them with a blast of fire from a small flame-throwing on one of its arms, the roaches appear to be winning.
The source of the fight can be seen behind the robot: a counter full of various kinds of packaged foods, some of them newly opened. One roach has managed to make it to the prize, ripping into a things of what seems to be apples with its mandibles.
OOC NOTES
To talk to a specific NPC one-on-one, leave a comment on their thread below. Note an exception is Louis in Radroach Riot, he will pop up on his own in threads related to him.
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If you have any OOC questions, please leave a comment here!
no subject
She's silent for a long moment after Jiro's finished speaking. Her first instinct is to give him her sympathy, but she's not sure he's the sort of person who appreciates sympathy like that.]
Do you suppose that this - Rago, you said? - do you think Rago might be dormant or asleep inside of you still? Or do you think you were perhaps forcefully separated before being put in the pod?
[Would the people who created this vault even have that kind of power? And if they did, what else were they capable of?]
no subject
[There's a fondness to it, as if he actually likes the demon; which he does. He and Rago had a strange relationship, given the circumstances, and Jiro's a little worried about what happened to him. There were a lot of people, both demons and humans, who wanted to get their hands on Rago's power.]
But we've been forcefully separated before; a demon did it. So it's possible. Makes me wonder what the fuck's really going on here. There has to be something more to it than a fallout shelter.
[At that, he's going to turn the conversation on Peggy. She may have some weird shit going on too.]
What were you doing before this, do you remember?
no subject
I was at work, saying good-bye to a friend before I left to go back home to New York.
[Okay, that wasn't the whole story. She'd been kissing Daniel Sousa, her friend, colleague, and love interest, with wild abandon. But it had been at their workplace, and she had been saying good-bye. It was just that discussing that fact with someone she barely knew seemed awfully forthcoming and perhaps just a tad bit tawdry and salacious.]
There doesn't seem to be a common denominator there that ties us together enough for us to be brought in here. Either it was all haphazard, or there's some larger design that we're simply not aware of. Yet.
[She intended to get some answers, though.]
no subject
I dunno what kind of design or plan would involve what amounts to random people from everywhere. Maybe that computer thing malfunctioned and it's some sci-fi time travel bullshit.
[He scoffs to himself, because it's ridiculous. A month ago, not even fathomable to him.]
no subject
Honestly, thinking about it...I have a background in intelligence and espionage as well as dealing with some very, ah, interesting people; you have a background in dealing with demons...depending on the sort of backgrounds that Elizabeth, Chocolat, and Sandy have, there may actually be a reason we're all here. We all, each of us, bring something different and interesting to the table through our backgrounds and our expertise. Perhaps it's not all as random as we suspect.
no subject
[He says it with disdain because he didn't get a choice whether or not to join the Bureau of Espionage. His experience is very limited, and it's certainly an unconventional organization with their targets being demons and not officials or foreign politicians. But it's a commonality.]
You work for your government? Not that it's what we all do, but...
[Sandy, he's sure, has nothing to do with any government organizations or espionage at all, given what she's told him about how people with powers were treated.]
I dunno what the fuck Chocolat does, but Elizabeth's got some engineering background or something and there's robots in her world made from people, I think. She said there were tears in the universe and I dunno, lots of weird shit for 1900 or whenever.
no subject
[She says this lightly and without any offense. It's certainly not the first time she's been called a spy, and it certainly won't be the last, but preferences are what they are. She raises an amused eyebrow at Jiro's reaction. It's not the life for everyone, it's true, and she knows some who left and settled down into quieter lives that fulfilled them more. She didn't expect it would be a choice she ever made, though.]
I work for the Strategic Scientific Reserve. It is a government entity, yes, a war agency. It's not where I ever expected I'd end up, but I'm not sure I'd want to do anything else either, now. I take it that you're not so fond of the, ah, spy game?
[She silently takes in what Jiro says about the others. Peggy hadn't written Sandy off completely - she knew what children could be capable of - but there was more of a civilian vibe to her than anything. She couldn't quite get a read on Chocolat, and Elizabeth...well, truth be told, Peggy saw something of a kindred spirit in Elizabeth.]
Such different backgrounds, disparate puzzle pieces, but when put together against the tableau of this vault...they do fit together in some rather interesting, useful ways.
no subject
Not so much. Better than being locked in a cell or whatever the fuck they were going to do. It was work for them, that, or erasure, which doesn't sound good.
[He's kind of pissed off at everybody involved.]
Puzzle pieces... Maybe things will make more sense when more pods open. Do you think they will? There's a lot.
[Granted, everyone could be dead in there even if they do.]
no subject
[Were they going to strip his mind of memories or something? That sounded awful, but also not something she would put past some governments doing - including the ones she worked for. She loved her work, but she held no illusions about the darkness and depravity that some governments were capable of doing, all in the name of the greater good.]
Did you have a choice at all, or was it made for you, regardless of what you might have wanted?
[She'd always had a choice herself, for the most part. She could have walked away any time she wanted - after Steve's death, after proving Howard Stark's innocence - but she hadn't wanted to. For her, the intelligence game was her choice.]
It's hard to say, to be honest. There's clearly some issue with the pods and their timers, given how we weren't even told what year we were in. The last thing I remember is it being 1947 - clearly for you, it's a different time, the same for the others. I'm sure the pods will open again, but the when is the difficult part. After all, we found skeletons, which means that it was a great deal of time before ours opened. Not a comforting thought, I know. It's possible that we can force them open, but I'm not certain it'd be healthy for whomever is inside them. We'd need to induce the pods into opening on their own, rather like a birth, but I haven't the sort of knowledge that could do such a thing. ...But you did say that Elizabeth was an engineer. Perhaps she might be able to finagle up a solution.
no subject
[They essentially kidnapped him after the possession and declared him a missing person.]
I escaped once, and went home, but turns out my grandfather was one of them and he tried to kill me.
[He later apologized for it, but it's still a point of contention. It's a convoluted story, and Jiro doesn't have the eloquence to convey nuances or coherency for the most part.]
Anyway, I went back as a prisoner, but I didn't try to leave again because they had resources and I wanted to protect Rago. It was a success, and then I ended up here.
[He looks at Peggy curiously when she mentions the skeletons.]
I assumed the skeletons were people here before the pods. Which doesn't make sense, does it? Yeah, I think maybe we should look into the computer shit and try to open some of them.