Nora awoke with Codsworth in front of her. The vault scientists were gone and the place looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years. The Mr Handy that she and Nate put together had various dents along the scoffed metal. Nora looked around and saw that her neighbors were frozen as Codsworth helped Nate out of the pod, she could hear their son stir a bit in his arms.
Codsworth explained that it has been about two hundred or so years since the bombs dropped and sixty years ago a man came to the vault.
Apparently he was after Shaun, he had threatened to shoot Codsworth thinking that he knew how to open the pods. So he lured him in the wrong direction by telling him the vault was a decoy. Ever since he looked for a way to free them. They were the only ones alive in the vault. Upon reaching the surface the land was completely different yet there were still parts they both recognized. The ground was dry and cracked, once lush trees were bare.
Some of the homes were decorated for Halloween, so either a few of their neighbors survived or people just took advantage of the empty homes.
Their house was still standing but only giant mutated insects lived inside. The radroachs as Codsworth called them were about the size of the average dog and attacked on sight. There were gunshots in the distance, Concord.
Nate didn't need to speak for Nora to know what he was thinking, there were people and they were in need of help.
He passed Shaun to her and carried the fire axe from the vault, using his old motorcycle gear as makeshift armor. In the meantime Nora can look over the house to see how much fixing it would need. The windows were busted so bars would need to be installed if they can't put in glass. Though first she was seeing what was left in the house. Thankfully at least their personal things were left alone, either out of pity or because they had no use for them. Surprisingly they were in decent shape, the dust showed where people must have scavenged for food or anything useful.
"Not the world I thought you'd grow up in but we'll make it work sweetheart." Nora said as Codsworth dusted off one of the now two century old baby blankets.
The crib had rotted so they were arranging the dresser into a makeshift bed for Shaun, at least till they find a crib that's intact.
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Preston was reloading when the gunshots started to die down and he heard the raiders fighting something else. He was thinking the deathclaw lurking around must have ran into them, what he saw was not that at all. Instead Preston saw a vault dweller with pre war biker gear over the jumpsuit fighting off the raiders with an axe while the deathclaw was stumbling around rubbing it's eyes furiously.
"Well good news the raiders are being taken care of, bad news not sure if the guy taking care of them is on our side or not." He told the remaining Minutemen.
They could hear the fighting getting closer along with nervous laughter, next it was silent for a few seconds before they were startled by a gentle knock.
"I took care of whoever those psychos were, I'll be peaceful as long as you are." The man said as he came inside, the vault jumpsuit looked new but he was tanned and muscled as if he had been out in the wasteland for a while.
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There were just a few people inside the room. They all watched him cautiously. He didn't blame them, after being hunted by people that seemed to only care about hurting others he would be worried about the guy that took them down alone too. Thankfully none of them were severely injured. The man that was guarding the building introduced himself as Preston Garvey, a member of the Minutemen. He remembered learning about them in school, though at this point it's not the weirdest thing that's happened today.
"Man, I don't know who you are but your timing's impeccable." He said.
"Just glad I was able to help. Does this kind of thing happen often here?" He asked.
"Unfortunately it does, a month ago there were twenty of us. Yesterday there were eight. Now, we're five." Preston answered. "We were trying to get to Sanctuary Hills, hoping that vault 111 wouldn't mind us regrouping there."
"Well good news, shouldn't be a problem. Bad news is that the vault was actually a sick science experiment." Nate replied.
"Another one?! Nearly every time one opens it's like a time capsule of how horrible Vault Tec was." A man looking through the terminal said.
"Do I want to know what happened in the vault?" Preston asked.
"You know how when something is frozen it stays preserved? Same thing but with people." He answered. "My wife and son are the only others that survived."
"No one should have to go through that." Preston said.
"Not to interrupt the moment but the deathclaw is no longer distracted." The other man commented.
"So that's what it's called."
"How did you incapacitate it without even knowing what it's called?"
"I threw dirt in it's eyes." Nate answered.
They all stared at him.
"Why didn't we think of that?"
"Well it was mostly luck but and I don't think I can do it a second time without decorating the street with my bones."
"Luckily for us a ventibird crashed at some point with power armor and the raiders didn't damage it, with them gone we can use that to deal with scaly down there."
"It's been a while but I still remember how to use one. I'll get it." Nate said heading to the roof.
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Within minutes they saw a suit of power armor drop down from the roof. They watched as the vault dweller wrested the deathclaw and kill it with a metal rod in the eye. When they came down he asked if deathclaws were edible.
"Yeah if you can get through the skin." Sturges answered.
"My wife, Nora's family believed in preparing for the worst thing possible regardless of how likely it was to happen. Some families passed down cooking recipes, her's the art of being able to survive completely alone for years at a time. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them are still around." He said as he lifted the deathclaw. "They would have a yearly camping trip as they lived everywhere and it was a good way to make sure they still had all those skills. One of the first few ones I went on I accidentally ran into a bear, it gave chase and I was pretty certain I was going to die only for Nora to pounce on it with her family. They had just grabbed whatever was close, from pocket knives to walking sticks. I think there were about thirty of them, I could barely see the bear from under them. None of us were sure which one had killed it as they weren't taking any chances. So if they are out there deathclaws would probably be competing with them."
"No offense but your wife's family sounds horrifying." Marcy replied.
"When I was in the army, my commanding officer once tried to get them to enlist and whatever happened made him retire early." He said.
Once they got there Preston was surprised to see Nate walk through the water instead of on the bridge.
He told him it was to not risk breaking the bridge. A mr handy bot greeted them, calling Nate sir. A woman he was guessing was Nora got excited upon seeing the deathclaw body. Something about evolution and taxes? She was talking too fast for him to know what she was talking about. Nate explained that her parents were both veterinarians that specialized in treating exotic or dangerous animals so she inherited their love of studying them.
"I wonder if marinating the meat in radaway will get rid of the radiation." He heard her say.
Nate was not exaggerating when he said her family practiced survival. Nora had made a list of what Sanctuary needed to be a livable settlement while they were still in Concord. Some she had taken care of.
She built a small water purifier, got a generator running, and was currently making a leather tanner for the deathclaw hide.
Once the skin was put in place she started to butcher the animal, showing them the weak spots. Apparently the organs are the most nutrient parts of an animal. She explained how the bones would be great to make tools with. The meat would be able to feed them for quite a while. For tonight they were going to roast one of the legs. The rest would be salted for later.
"No wonder it was so aggressive, see how the meat has no marbling?" She asked while butchering the animal.
It was mostly red with a bit of pink and no white or yellow at all like brahim.
"So?" Marcy asked.
"So there's no fat at all and the stomach was literally empty, a few more days without food the muscles would have started to waste away. This animal was in the process of starvation." Nora answered.
"What? It didn't look starving!" Preston replied.
"Does this one look different from others?" She asked.
"Not really, does that mean all of them are starving?" Sturges asked.
"It's a possibility, especially if the amount of vegetation here is the same in most of the Commonwealth. Less plants less herbivores, so less food for carnivores, as a result we're on the menu. Doesn't help that human meat is a lot more tender than most animals." Nora answered.
"How the hell do you know how tender human meat is?!" Marcy asked.
"Because each time a large carnivore started preying on humans, something was wrong with it. There was a grizzly that had started hunting campers when I was in college, my father killed it and found that nearly all its teeth were all rotten so every bite would have been agonizing, especially when eating. A tiger in 1990 killed fourteen people and had actually been a zoo animal that had been abandoned after spending most of its life in captivity, it had only interacted with humans so it didn't know how to hunt anything else. My mother told these stories as it was her job to help these animals and make sure those tragedies weren't repeated." Nora explained.
"And here I thought giant animals attacking people was only a wasteland problem." Preston said.
"Not as much as now, but it did happen." Nate replied.
"Well speaking of which, who's going to stand guard for the night?" Sturges asked.
"I volunteer, I don't need to sleep and I would rather not be alone for years again." Codsworth answered.
"Great, and beds?" Sturges asked.
"Rosa, Washington, and the Summer homes still have intact mattresses. I'll show you to them." Nora answered.
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Once the Minutemen and settlers were well settled, Nate and Nora finally had a chance to talk.
"So what do you think of the Minutemen?" Nate asked.
"Preston offered to make me the general, it's their highest position. It's a lot for the first day out of the vault but I think it's the best way to make this world safe. Not just for Shaun, but for everyone. I was thinking that I would take it till we find someone that can do better." Nora answered.
