Marvelous Shop, Chapter 5 (Patreon)

I must have been put asleep as I awoke to a loud hissing noise ringing out as I began shivering hard. 'Fucking bullshit!' 

"Oh my god... Someone is still alive!" A female voice hissed out as my blurry eyes cleared up and I took a deep breath with blessed warmer air filling my lungs.

"Nora?" I spoke as I knew her name and her face scrunched up before she exhaled and replied. 

"What a terrible state we are in right Jake? Alright come on, get up young man." She ordered and I was reminded about how she was a soldier who fought in the Resource Wars against China.

So she was falling back to being hard.

"Ok, ok, I am up." I said as I felt my stiff muscles opening up as I stepped out of the cryopod I had been sealed within.

The room I was in, was the typical vault affair of concrete and industrial effects with the lights flickering as I took in the surroundings.

And as I took in the surroundings. I saw that Nate, Nora's husband was re-freezing as she had closed his pod back up.

"Jake come on. We gotta get of here while the Vault still has power." 

I blinked before nodding and drew a hand through my hair before my face twitched as I realized I was dressed in a somewhat tight-fitting leather Vault suit that had the number 111 embossed onto the back of it.

We walked towards the end of the room and I asked quietly. "How long have you been awake? And where is everyone?"

I saw Nora steps slow before she shook her head and said. "I woke up a few minutes ago... But my son Shaun was taken in between however long we have been asleep."

Nora pushed a button on the door leading out of the cryostasis pod area and with a sharp hissing noise the pneumatic door shot up quickly allowing us into the tunnels of Vault 111. 

"Well, that's not good." I spoke with a wry expression crossing my face as we had to walk through a side tunnel with one of the door systems not working. And we walked through the engineering bay that had the broken nuclear power system that had powerful arcs of electricity flaring off it loudly.

"Look, there are a couple of batons over here." Nora pointed out and I took one and snapped it out with a clicking noise.

"Let's keep going." Nora said as she also took her own baton as we carefully made our way past the generators without getting shocked to death and then it happened.

Nora froze as a loud chittering noise rang out as we entered the next hallway. And I made a grunt of disgust seeing a football-sized fucking cockroach happily skittering across the ground as it was drinking some condensation water on the ground.

"I can't..." Nora whispered and I couldn't help a small chuckle at the thought of the big bad Fallout protagonist being terrified of an oversized radroach.

I walked past her and then I slammed a boot-covered foot atop the cockroach with a loud crunching noise as its exoskeleton shattered under the force of my boot.

'Yup. No XP system, and I am sure as shit, not going to loot this to see if I can find any Caps in its asshole.' I thought with Nora shuddering as I scrapped the gunk off my feet.

"Nora look alive." I joked with her wiping her disgust away and nodding as we headed into the security and living area for the Vault Tech scientists that were awake when we were all put into Cryosleep.

Once we were in there I remained silent as Nora froze for a moment at seeing the skeleton sitting at the overseer terminal. "The armory is unlocked." I spoke as Nora carefully move the skeleton out of the way so she could get into the terminal.

"Don't touch anything, Jake. Its... It's saying we have been in cryosleep for two hundred-plus years." She spoke with a haunted tone.

I gave a wolf whistle at that and I used the prior knowledge of having several firearms in my first life to pull out a magazine and pull back the slider on the 10mm pistol to check its slider and innards.

"The guns still have oil on them. They work just fine. Though all the rifles have been taken. Only a couple 10mm's and their ammo are left." I announced.

"Do you know how to use one?" Nora asked as she clicked several buttons that made a loud grinding noise that I realized was the sound of the doors inside the vault being forced to open via emergency power or something.

"Yeah, I know how to use it. Though... I am interested in this energy gun in this case, anyway you ready to get out of here?" I asked as I the extra magazines filled with 10mm ammo and a couple of boxes of ammo and put them into a backpack I found in the security section along with some meds.

Nora nodded but looked at the Cryogun with a hint of desire entering her eyes before she said. "Wait, help me out right quick. I remember a trick from the military to fuck with those padlocks."

I raised an eyebrow as Nora put the thinner part of the end of our batons in between the rings of the padlock and then she spoke. "Come here, stand behind me and hold the batons with me. On the count of three we pull at the same time and it will break the lock."

I gave a wry smile at that and I saddled up close to Nora and I heard her inhale as her plump backside hit my waist as I wrapped my arms past her to grab the batons.

There was a pause before Nora spoke coldly. "On three we sharply pull."

And she coldly counted off making me wonder what was up with her before I remembered the last thing she probably remembered was her husband being killed along with her son being stolen away and here I was all but grinding up on her.

"Three!" And a loud crack rang out as the force of two full-grown adults abruptly yanking with full leverage made the shitty pins lose hold inside the padlock with its snapping open.

Once it opened up I quickly let go of Nora and stepped back as she stepped forward to take the Cryolater out of its locked case along with several cryo microfusion cells.

"You alright Nora?" I asked quietly and she sighed but nodded.

"Yeah, just got lost in thought. Reminded me of the war and trying to break into enemy stores for equipment to send home as trophies." 

She shrugged and then shouldered the cryogen before she spoke. "Ok, lets get the hell out of this vault. I already opened up the front area." 

With our newly acquired guns and some leather pads that went over our jumpsuits, we went out into the next hallway only for Nora to groan as we saw a full three more of the large radroachs.

"Cover your ears Jake." Nora said as she hefted up her gun and I mentally cursed as I watched her tuck her head against her shoulder to cover one ear and then with her other hand she covered her other ear as she held out the 10mm pistol with her free hand before shooting.

And I jolted as even with my ears covered... Shooting inside of a fucking bunker tunnel was loud as shit with Nora quickly shooting three shots that slammed home into the center sides of the Radroachs.

When my hands came off my ears I growled out. "Seriously... Shooting in an enclosed bunker?" 

Nora threw me a nod before she shrugged and said through some ringing in my ears. "I rather mutated monsters not be gnawing on us. Come on."

And we went into the main lobby of the vault and I quickly took a large pole and beat the other radroachs to death before Nora could shoot them again while Nora was busy putting the sole Pipboy we had found onto her wrist for her to unlock the door.

The large vault door made a fucking massive amount of noise as the powerful hydraulic systems screamed with the effort of moving the massive vault door and once we entered the elevator I looked up to the front top metal cover and couldn't help but say dryly.

"What if the gears or whatever at the top door got rusted and we just get pasted as we ride up this lift?" 

Nora actually paused at hearing my words and looked up at the dark ceiling above us with fear before saying. "We just have to chance it. It's not like we can climb up to the top to fix or pry it open can we?" 

And so we got onto the fucking death trap and with a lever pull I sent us up to our fates... Which as a loud rumble rang out with light cracking through the roof of the closed metal plate. Our fate seemingly wasn't to be crushed into a pancake via the platform taking us to the top level.

Light from the outside covered our forms and I blinked as I took in... Devastation. The nuclear bombs forceful winds, and two centuries of neglect hadn't done the surroundings any favours in the slightest.

"Let's go." I spoke as Nora was seemingly stunned, as to her mind after the last couple of hours everything was completely different. And she numbly followed me as we left the platform, we quickly made our way down from the vault staging ground back to the subdivision where Nora used to live in.

"Shit, your house is utterly collapsed," Nora muttered and I gave a wry smile at how my previous identity was covered so I just kept quiet as we entered the subdivision proper and we finally reached Nora's hold house which was standing.

"Oh my! Oh my, oh my! Nora is that you!" I heard a mechanical voice cry out and from one of the back bedrooms came the large floating Mister Handy bot that Nora had owned before the bombs dropped.

"Codsworth, what has happened?!" Nora demanded trying to obviously get the full picture of things.

While I had a few thoughts strike me. 

First, how did Codsworth, the Mister Handy fly on a single jet propulsion engine? And how did he fly and not burn the ground beneath him? Lastly, how the hell did he keep fueled up for the last two hundred years?

"Boohoo! It was so terrible! The bombs fell, and... It's been two hundred, and ten years since you all been gone! I can't even clean the house anymore as all the holes in the house make it so mold just grows so easily!" 

I coughed hearing that and Nora's voice tightened as she spoke. "Codsworth stick with me. Someone took Shaun, do you have any idea where he might have gone?" 

Codsworth clearly thought about the options before he spoke. "Well... I suggest we look around subdivision, whoever took Shaun must have also traveled through here lest they decided to swim through the polluted river with Shaunt." 

"Fine lets do that really quick." Nora agreed and I spoke up.

"Nora, I will catch up with you in like ten minutes while you look for clues. I am going to see if there is anything to salvage in the surrounding houses." 

Nora's face darkened as she realized something as I did. With how it was two hundred years into the future. Getting quality food and water wasn't going to be easy.

Though... For me, I was going to be very particular about my food and water intake honestly in this universe. 

After-all I only needed to keep going for the next week and maybe a few extra days... Unless Nora decides to take me on a merry adventure of jolly cooperation.

'Honestly doing part of the Brotherhood quest could be very useful in getting a fuck load of institute laser weapons along with a so-called 'Legendary' laser weapon.' I mused before stopping and going still as I remembered!

The bullshit anomalous legendary weapons that could be food in this universe. And at that, I told myself I wasn't fucking leaving until I got the Spray N' Pray. A Tommy gun that shot normal bullets... But when those bullets impacted things said rounds would violently explode in a way that would make Bolters from 40k jealous.

Or the Splattercanon I could get from Nukaworld where its effect was that the bullets that impacted a single target would infinitely grow in power the more I hit that single target before I had to reload. What if I had a box magazine with like a thousand rounds? Could I eventually shoot through like a dragon or something?

"Alright... Make sure to collect any bottled water you can. I... I doubt canned food will still be all that good now." Nora said with a wry smile and I nodded while taking out my pistol to go check out the other side of the subdivision.

But not even a minute later, hearing the rustling of the large flying Bloatflies coming out of the house I was walking behind. I held up the pistol and as a massive Bloatfly flew out of a broken window a loud cracking noise rang out as my gun jerked up as I sent the round into the side of the Bloatfly making it fall to the ground with the hole that got blasted into it.

The Bloatfly were literally the size of a decent-sized beach ball and with only four maybe five meters between us, there weren't issues with my aim even if I was unfamiliar with this gun as I shot down another Bloatfly and then shot the first one again as its wings were trying to bring it back into the air as it was leaking a noxious smell from its drooling mouth.

I remained silent for a moment and I smiled wryly as I heard Nora calling out. "Jake are you alright!?"

To which I forcefully shouted back. "Huge bugs even bigger than those cockroaches Nora! I am fine though!" 

And there was silence as I imagined Nora's pinched expression at the thought of even fucking bigger bugs. So with a moment to myself, I quickly switched magazines and then worked to reload my first magazine as god knows when I was going to have the time to refill it and I only had three magazines in total.

After a bit of exploration, I finally found what I wanted though, in the fortified cellar behind one of the houses and getting into it. I frowned as I realized something crucial... I had no fucking way of opening these safes. Hell, I doubted Nora did either with how she didn't have some bootleg gamer power.

But! There was hope, as there was several boxes of bottled water that were wrapped in triple layers of aluminum foil, and there was another box of meds that were also wrapped in aluminum foil which helped keep it sealed. And of course, a large golf case that had three hunting rifles inside of it.

Thankfully all chambered in what looked like 308 ammo of which the golf caddy bag was stuffed with like fifty rounds of. 'Ok. I get a rifle. Nora gets a rifle. And although the food is awash, the water is still good probably especially with the iodine drops in the medicine box.' I thought as I brought my goods out with a grunt of effort up to the top level to go find Nora.

As I imagine she was going to want to get going towards Concord to look for clues for her kid... And I really wanted to get going there as well as I wanted to see if we could get Dog Meat the bestest boy and companion in the world.