Vol. III Chapter 6 “Like I said, it gets cold up here.” (Part 1 of 2)

Vol. lll Chapter 6 "Like I said, it gets cold up here."

Firestorms raged through empty cities. Lakes and rivers boiled away. Noxious smoke and soot blocked out the sun. Thousands of feet below the ground, Burton taught a science lesson.

The ten adults in Vault X all agreed to keep the fifty children busy. Their days were filled with activity. Physical exercise in the morning. Lessons throughout the afternoon. All manner of extracurricular projects. The children worked diligently, although it was hard to say who welcomed the distractions more.

 "I know this is boring," Burton struck an apologetic tone. "But once we finish the basics we'll do something fun." Before he could think of something fun the pipboys pipped and the hour ran out.

 Professor Blake had finished his first day of actual teaching. Vault-Tec had made him a professor at their university as a marketing stunt. A good name on the board. As he marked the children's work, a knock on the door frame drew his attention.

 "How was it?" Shaw asked, meaning how did he feel.

 "Fine." Burton answered, still feeling nervous. "Better than fine. They're smart, well behaved, good kids. Nothing like my school days."

 "They're resilient, they know how important it is." Shaw smiled to try and ease Burton's barely hidden guilt. "I actually need your help with something for the children."

 Burton followed Shaw up to the stockroom. Through the grid layout, to a large crate on a bottom shelf. "I honestly thought it was a mistake, but here it is." Shaw knocked the crate.

 "I'll get a couple of bots to move it." Burton started to press buttons on the pipboy.

"I'm not letting them clankers handle this." Shaw winked, and headed to get a hydraulic hand truck.

It took almost an hour of careful tilting and turning to get the large crate to the rec room. Shaw gave every child they ran into got given a task to do. All of whom he knew by name. One was sent to get paper and pens. Another to get a crowbar, and so on. It took Burton an embarrassing amount of time to realise he'd been assigned a task as well.

A group of small faces gathered round the wooden shipping crate as it reached the space in the rec room. More pulled in by the noise of banging and creaking as some of the children opened it with glee. "A pool table?" A boy asked.

 "Too big for a pool table." A girl added.

 "Anyone have another guess?" Shaw asked. "Professor Blake, enlighten us." Burton looked down at the oak edged, green rectangle. Trying to remember the name and not waking up on a table like this with a hangover.

"It's a snooker table." Burton smiled as Shaw threw him a wink.

 "Correct. Get it assembled children and I'll teach you how to play."

 Shaw pulled Burton back and let the children work together on a task. They intervened only to help tilt the heavy table up so the children could attach the legs.

 Shaw set up the coloured balls and offered Burton the cue. He smacked the cue ball down the table, clattering into the triangle of red balls with a pleasing sound.

 "And that was your first mistake." Shaw took the cue and gently potted a red. "Snooker is like chess, it requires patience, forethought. You're competing against yourself as much as your opponent." Burton saw how much Shaw enjoyed this game, his enthusiasm transferred to the children.

 Shaw talked them all through the rules while a few children took notes, drew up sign up sheets. Burton took only two more shots, his mistakes thoroughly exploited.

 Shaw set the table up for the children and slipped out for a moment as Burton left. "You have fun, they have fun. Imagine that." Shaw smiled warmly as Burton realised why he'd been given the task of helping.

 "I get it." Burton tried to keep the annoyed tone from his voice, disappointed with himself.

 "One thing you'll learn as a parent, kids want to be played with, not played to." Shaw stared through the window, his expression sad but with a flicker of hope.

 "Your son." Burton asked cautiously, "Is he somewhere safe?"

 "He died...six years ago now. Cancer. He was nine." Shaw took a deep breath, still staring at the children playing.

 "I'm sorry." Burton saw the pain, but couldn't begin to understand it.

"I wasn't even here when he…" Shaw looked angry for a moment, then just sad. "I was thousands of miles away, trekking through a desert to shoot a general that got replaced by someone worse." Burton watched Shaw as he looked at the children. Shaw had a look of hope, for himself, a chance at redemption. He held Burton's gaze for a moment.

 "I'll never make that mistake again. Whatever happens I'm not leaving another child."

Violent storms raged for hundreds of square miles. New rivers of toxic water formed, bursting banks of old ones, polluting everything around. Wind tore at abandoned cityscapes, twisting straight lines into chaotic rubble. What little life survived began to mutate.

 Thousands of feet below the ground, Burton smiled, listening to pencils on paper. "Fifteen minutes guys. Anything you're not sure about, take your best guess." Burton hid his a chuckle with a cough, thinking of his old bioengineering professor. He never would have said that, Burton thought. Almost hearing the cruel mocking tone of someone he'd learned a great deal from. Even if he hated the man.

Four years had passed in the gilded cage of Vault X. Things had gotten easier. Burton had doubted Shaw that first day, when he said they were going to be family, but it happened sooner than expected. Especially amongst the children. They became brothers and sisters, helping each other in a way the ten adults couldn't.

 There were tiffs and spats, the occasional scuffle. Nothing that didn't blow over in a few days. Nothing like the bullying and pretend hierarchy that marked his five years of high school. Burton wondered if the odd mix of freedom and sense of real egalitarianism did that. But he also thought about the data he reviewed each night.

 "Pencils down please." Burton smiled, seeing the mix of expressions sat at metal desks. "Great work everyone, these tests are to help me as much as you." The door retracted with a smooth hiss and Shaw entered. "Let's call that the hour kids. Turn in your papers on the way out, thank you."

 Burton double blinked to activate the contact lenses he put in each day. The system picked out the shaded answers, instantly giving him the score.

 "I still can't get used to those things." Shaw half sighed and slumped into a chair.

 "It'll be easy for them." Burton picked up on the half sigh, knowing by now it was a worry for the children. Soon the jet black devices that he put on each child's arm would be fully activated. The devices had grown with the children. Secreting conductive nano filaments along their nerves and around their bones.

 "How'd they do?" Shaw asked as Burton put the final paper down.

 "Nothing lower than eighty five." Burton saw his proud smile reflected on the face opposite.

 "How'd I do?" Shaw laughed and handed over the test he'd taken. Burton sat back, amused. He shut off the lenses and took out the rarely used red grease pencil. "Just tell me, fucking nerd." Burton hid a laugh and started putting red marks on the paper, like the professor he hated used to.

"Terrible." He balled it up and threw it over his shoulder. Shaw looked worried for a second. The ten staff had taken part in all the classes and sport the children did, graciously, as support. But each had learned from it.

 "Really? I thought I nailed it." Shaw looked disappointed which finally broke Burton's act. He laughed and handed Shaw a cigarette, the only one for the day.

 "Ninety eight percent." Burton was impressed. He lit his own, then Shaw's and sat back, enjoying the moment. "Now you're qualified in computer science, maybe you can find the missing cigarettes." They both laughed, remembering a stressful night in the vast storeroom. Trying to find half a million misplaced cigarettes.

 "Fucking shipping error." Shaw smiled and they sat in the quiet hum, listening out for children approaching.

 "Listen, Ellen came to see me." Burton took the daily moment of calm they shared to broach a difficult topic. Ellen had been a trainee teacher, taking the five year contract in exchange for a degree and a small fortune. She wanted to travel. When the world ended she became so much more.

 Now, in her late twenties she was the youngest staff member. She talked the staff into having Christmas, for the children. Muted that first year, but the second she'd convinced Burton to help her make fifty skateboards. Then taught the children to ride them. And generated a lot of data on minor injuries.

 "Ellen wants me to perform a termination." Burton watched Shaw do the same calculations he'd done. Whatever happened after lights out in the staff suites was treated as casual, more of an activity than anything else.

 "It's not mine." Shaw said almost as a reflex.

 "I didn't ask." Burton saved Shaw from asking him. "Not mine either. Seems a package of contraceptives got water damaged at some point. I incarcerated it, took a random sampling of the next batch and switched to that." Burton enjoyed the old fashioned science of Bunsen burners and chemical analysis, despite it giving him time to think.

 "Right, set it up, we'll cover her downtime." Shaw sat back, shifting his weight to leave. Burton wasn't finished.

 "I can't believe I'm saying this…" Burton trailed off.

 "It's her decision Burton." Shaw said what Burton had always believed.

 "Should it be?" He felt like a hypocrite, the kind that had shunned his mother. "The satellite scans are painfully slow, but there's not much left."

Burton reached for the comfort of science. "I chose this valley because it's a closed loop ecosystem. Everything coming in hits water, bedrock, or hills. That works for us, but the direct strikes on the valley floor mean it's working against us. We don't have transport, even with the suits. We could be here a long time."

 "Are you sure you're being objective?" Shaw knew that had become a relative term. As soon as Burton heard it out loud he knew. By now his child would be learning to walk in rooms and corridors just like these. Do they know my name, he thought, the one question he always came back to.

 "No, I'm not." Burton let out a heavy sigh that almost echoed.

 "Look, Ellen's young, and we've all got frozen samples." Shaw sat back for a moment, and almost changed the subject. "Where are we with the activations?"

 "On schedule. Should be done before Christmas, then we can give them some time to relax." Burton answered, still clinging to the distraction.

 "In the meantime, what about the girls?" Shaw asked about the children, Burton hadn't even considered them getting pregnant.

 "No, the device would alert me to the hormonal changes. We'll take samples before we activate. The device will allow us to regulate the hormones in the girls. It's not as successful in the boys, ten percent error rate, but it works for the girls." Burton sighed again, calmer this time. "When the time is right we can use ivf, it'll actually give us a better chance." The cold comfort of science brought a glimmer of hope.

 "When the time is right." Shaw stood and waited for Burton to do the same. "Come on, let's get a bottle of the general's private reserve and go find those cigarettes."