62 | DAY TWELVE

[...is this what they mean by stress? This is probably what they mean by stress.

Alice, trying hard not to giggle, reaches around him and selects "Personnel Files" next.]

Well, now I know what to call you if I ever want to get under your skin. ♡

[ Underneath the personnel files, they receive a few more options: ]

> BATEMAN, AVA
> CASTELLAN, LUKE
> MARTEN, RHYS
> PHANTOMHIVE, CIEL
> WOLF, BIGBY

[Like 90% of this has been going over his head, but at this, he just sighs.]

Yeah, we figured that out. Do we really have time to go through all of their files too?

Don't you even DARE calling me that, Alice, I'll mail your cut-out tongue to the damn Prime Minister of Britain, WHICH IS WHERE I'M FROM!

[he's just so fuming mad over this....take a chill pill man]

Ergh...let's select Rhys, let's see what stupid things they have to say about him. I need something to cheer me up. Maybe they have some info we need, who the fuck knows?

[please don't take a chill pill this is hilarious]

Rhys Marten

EMPLOYEE ID:
VTSCI62270894

PRIMARY RESIDENCE:
Langley, Virginia, USA

AGE:
32

HEIGHT & WEIGHT:
6'1" | 162 lbs w/o arm | 172lbs w/ arm

SKILLS:
Programming, Hacking, Engineering

BIOGRAPHY:
Rhys was born into an old, old money family, living a pretty lavish lifestyle since a young age. Hailing from DC, most of his family's money was invested into two things: politics and robotics. Rhys went to private schools as a kid and was the youngest in his family so fairly indulged by his parents, given free reign towards what he wanted to pursue. On the fencing team throughout middle school and high school, he eventually went on to study at CIT and focus on cybernetics, general robotics, and AI. While attending CIT, he met who would become his best friend, a guy named Vaughn and the two of them took advantage of their surroundings to go to party after party and hackathon after hackathon. It's, uh, pretty easy when you're the hot rich robot guy to get invited to any party you want.

It's at one of these hackathons that he met John "Jack" Marten, a former CIT student who only came back to visit the hackathons once in a while to keep his title of reigning hackathon champ. After a pretty snippy first meeting and Rhys losing horrendously at a hack-off against Jack, they became friends. Pretty close friends, in fact, and soon after started dating. It was around this time Rhys started working on the tech that would eventually become his cybernetic eye and arm, spending hours fine-tuning the project until a working prototype could be built. This is, of course how he met his second best friend -- Fiona.

In his last year at CIT, during his graduate studies in fact, his cybernetic arm prototype went missing and it took a long time to track down exactly where it went -- which ended up it being taken by a con artist to be sold on the black market. Certain events ended up distracting the both of them from taking revenge on each other until they settled into an uneasy partnership and later, friendship. In the end, Rhys had his prototype returned and graduated from CIT just in time to be offered a position at Vault-Tec.

Vault-Tec who was pretty impressed by his work as a student and so they helped him refine his cybernetic arm and eye technology, eventually even helping Rhys install it on himself in exchange for ownership of the blueprints. Somewhere during the course of this, Jack and Rhys decided to get married and move to Langley together to be closer to their work (Jack's at RoboCo and Rhys at Vault-Tec). Rhys' work with Vault-Tec was always a bit more... gritter and less moral than Jack would've liked but Rhys kept quiet and did what he was told because well, he enjoyed the ethical line they were toeing at Vault-Tec.

That's, of course, how he eventually ended up on the Vault 62 project. Vault-Tec knew that while Rhys would agree to any moral grey areas, he wouldn't so readily give up Jack and Jack wasn't quite as willing. Rhys' only stipulation to joining the project was that Jack would be kept safe there with them as one of the participants. Rhys, of course, fully well knew what this meant for Jack's memories but Rhys was too good a fit for the project so, they invited him on and saved a spot for Jack in the process.

INTERVIEWER'S NOTES:
Requested to work on this project so long as his spouse could also be placed in the Vault. We accepted him because of that condition. Guy's a real piece of work. Be aware that Mr. Marten is aware of the experimentation in the Vaults because of his work in classified divisions. This could be helpful to the Overseer he's been assigned to, so long as those memories aren't tampered with. HR would also like to note that he has problems with authority, so good luck, Overseer.

...

[Wow. Annnnd Nice Alfendi's back.]

I wonder if divorce papers still exist? Because I'm thinking of sending Jack some, you know, to help. Can you even get divorced in a computer?

... "kept safe". He's got a funny way of doing that...

[Jack is super dead GOOD JOB KEEPING YOUR HUSBAND SAFE, RHYS. Also what's a divorce, do they even have divorce in fantasyland, probably not. She eyes Alfendi sort of weirdly, then shrugs.]

I want to see what they have to say about Bigby. Pick that one, Alfie, and I promise I won't call you an American.

Edited 2016-11-13 05:06 (UTC)

Like I said, the divorce papers would help.

[HE'S SUCH A JERK also he's just going to let out the biggest sigh like DON'T REMIND HIM]

Sure. Ugh.

Bigby Wolf

EMPLOYEE ID:
VTSCI62270691

PRIMARY RESIDENCE:
Boston, Massachusetts

AGE:
38

HEIGHT & WEIGHT:
5'10" / 200 lbs.

SKILLS:
Interrogating; fighting (hand-to-hand); investigating; handling of firearms; basic first aid i.e. bandaging and stitching; (reluctant) leadership; athleticism; usage of Power Armor and other pre-War military tech.

BIOGRAPHY:
Bigby was born as the youngest of seven children to his mother, Winter Wolf and his father, Boreas Wind. Boreas had left his family for reasons unknown to Bigby only a few years after his birth, leading to the passing of Winter from health complications that stemmed from severe anxiety and depression. Due to the number of children and lack of immediate family, he and his brothers were separated and sent to several different foster homes across America. Bigby did not take to this transition well, finding himself growing into quite the aggressive young lad. He had gotten into many, many fights in his youth, causing him to be shuffled about from home to home with no foster family to take him in.

This continued until the age of eighteen. With Bigby having become a delinquent constantly committing petty crimes and acts of violence, he was facing few options on his own. He had pushed away the idea of a new family and decided to use one of the only things he was good at ― hurting people ― and joined the United States Armed Forces. After all, the Resource Wars had just begun around this time and they were eager to recruit just about anyone that could hold a gun.

Bigby's eagerness to channel his anger into something "productive" (i.e. killing a lot of people, primarily those from China, the opposing faction) helped him quickly progress through the ranks of the military. He had been initially assigned to several black ops in the years leading up to the Anchorage Campaign of 2066, infiltrating secure areas within China for capture and/or elimination of high valued targets. Bigby had left a trail of bodies behind in his wake, building up the myth of something more than a man. To the U.S., he was known as "The Big Bad Wolf" in thanks to his name. To China, he was called much worse.

He had eventually volunteered to participate in the Battle of Anchorage and had fought on the front lines. His combat record allowed him an opportunity at being one of the first wearers of the T-51b power armor. A prototype unseen by all parties at that point in time, Bigby truly reigned terror upon his enemies. Even he is unaware of the body count. For several years, his life was nothing but war, thriving off of the terror that he had provided to his enemies and even those on the same side as him.

Bigby was never once tempted to let up until a fated encounter between Bigby and a female prisoner that he had found in a Chinese outpost. An Alaskan chained together with her sister, he had killed the captors protecting the outpost in a brutal, unforgiving fashion. For the first time in who knows how long, he had hurt another to help someone else for a change. His reward upon releasing them? A bayonet to the abdomen, by the prisoner who had become terrified by Bigby's (for once) well-meaning bloodlust. It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. He had come to find out in the future that her name was Snow.

God, this has gotten long and so I'm going to tl;dr this and come back later. Bigby returned to the U.S. due to the injury that threatened his life. After recuperating, he had begun working at the Chicago Police Department. His skill set provided him a fast track into becoming a detective there, and he had eventually stemmed away from constant violence in favor of upholding the law and protecting others. Another fateful encounter with a pre-War Nick Valentine, having been brought to Chicago to lead Operation Winter's End, had occurred during this time. They worked together closely in pursuing Edward Winter, but all was for naught. People got killed, the operation was disbanded and Nick and Bigby went their separate ways.

While Nick was taken in by C.I.T. for PTSD, Bigby had earned the interest of Vault-Tec. It wasn't long before he was advised what was soon to happen to the country and the world, and he was offered a spot in one of their many vault projects to ensure security was enforced and to help further the study of its inhabitants in order to make sure civilization continued after a nuclear holocaust. He had very strong doubts about the intentions of the corporation but saw little choice as tensions between countries continued to grow and his first-hand experience with the Resource Wars. With the promise that they would find Snow and her sister to bring to the continental U.S. and its nearest Vault, he accepted a position with the shady company.

INTERVIEWER'S NOTES:
Recommended as a chance for rehabilitation. Not our first pick, considering he may be a bit too loyal for our cause... But it could provide some additional stress for the team itself. We'll let the Robobrain know.

Oh, goodness. Poor Bigby...that sounds like quite the life.

[Though apparently he wasn't a wolf all along. Wow. Disappointing!!!!]

I wonder who this Nick Valentine man is, though?

[blah blah blah tl;dr]

Jeeze, no wonder he's so scary. Dunno, though. Not a whole lot of this makes sense to me.

[Super disappointing. Alice liked him because she thought he wasn't human. :( ]

...I'm not sure. Do you think he'll show up in any of the other files? Maybe we should check them just in case.

[It's a long shot, but she's curious, so... she'll reach around and select Luke's file next.]

I wonder what they'd say about us, if they had files on us somewhere... [SHE WANTS TO SEE WHAT THE JUSTIFICATION FOR JEFF'S "?" AT THE END OF HIS NAME IS]

Edited 2016-11-13 05:15 (UTC)

Luke Castellan

EMPLOYEE ID:
VTSCI62271053

PRIMARY RESIDENCE:
Westport, Connecticut, USA

AGE:
19

HEIGHT & WEIGHT:
5'10" / 200 lbs.

SKILLS:
Cartography, lockpicking/designing, chemistry, computer sciences, two years into a bachelors degree of psychology

BIOGRAPHY:
As the oldest child of Nathan and May Castellan, Luke was pretty much placed on a pedestal the moment he was born. Of course, a lot of that changed the moment that May fell victim to radiation poisoning. Not enough Radaway, you see…with his mother out of the picture and his father a traveling businessman, Luke and his younger sister Annabeth spent a lot of their childhood living at a boarding school throughout the years from the time he was in 5th grade to the time he graduated from high school. It's at this school that he was trained in various trades including craftwork/welding, architecture, chemistry, fencing, electrician wiring, computer sciences, etc. He probably should have only picked one of these skills, but Luke likes to dabble in a bit of everything. A jack of all trades, if you will.

While attending school he met a girl who came from a similar background. Her name was Thalia and she continued to help expand Luke's world. Thalia was the one who encouraged Luke to pursue higher education at a university with her. They remained best friends throughout the years and she remained as one of his most driving motivations. He decided to pursue a degree in something that seemed more challenging and yet piqued his interests: psychology.

Here, he trained under a professor by the name of Ron Sok and began to study how people worked, what made them tick and what would push and bend people. Perhaps it was a little unethical, but Luke found the subject fascinating nevertheless. Thalia had always convinced him to follow his dreams, and so when Vault-Tec contacted Luke under the recommendation of Professor Sok Luke knew better than to pass up the opportunity. He was never quite sure what Professor Sok told Vault-Tec to get them to hire on someone so young, but maybe that didn't matter.

As it turned out, having a varying skillset was helpful in the creation of vaults. It wasn't entirely what Luke wanted to do but a job was a job and maybe it would help him later in life. He was content designing vaults while juggling some of his schoolwork and while his social life started to dwindle it didn't matter very much since he felt like he was getting ahead in life. If he was ahead at an early age, he could do whatever it took to provide for himself, Annabeth and Thalia. (He wouldn't think on it very much, but he knew he wanted to keep the girl in his life forever. If that meant manning up and asking her to be his girlfriend, then so be it.) But he couldn't have distractions. All he needed to do was work and impress both Vault-Tec and his professor.

It was a slow and steady process of breaking Luke's morality, considering he was young. He never quite realized that the very thing he was studying was being used on him and as he started designing more and more traps in vaults and puzzles in rooms, he started caring less and less. People should appreciate his work. People should be grateful he's building places for them to be safe. So what if he's allowing creative liberties? It's this arrogance that made him prime for the Vault 62 project as well. Under the pretense that his sister and Thalia would be safe and he would be greatly rewarded, Luke agreed to be a part of this project.

INTERVIEWER'S NOTES:
Comes with a high recommendation from Ron, which caught [NAME REDACTED]'s eye. The kid's young, but based on what we've heard, he should be able to carry out the experiment with no problem. We actually think that might be helpful, considering things are going to go crazy once the residents realize what's going on. Having some younger additions to the science team will probably help out the process.

[Alice snorts.]

He was the first one we killed, though. So much for helping the scientists be the last ones standing...

Yes, sadly, his cleverness did nothing for him, here.

[Selecting Ava next SORRY LUKE THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU]

Edited 2016-11-13 05:23 (UTC)

Ava Bateman

EMPLOYEE ID:
VTSCI62271329

PRIMARY RESIDENCE:
False Pass, Alaska, USA

AGE:
25

HEIGHT & WEIGHT:
5'5" / 120 lbs

SKILLS:
Engineering, programming, coding, manipulation, reading people

BIOGRAPHY:
Ava was born in a secluded town in Alaska, raised by a man named Nathan, an inventor and technical genius. Her mother left him when Ava was an infant, and he remained distant and cold to his daughter. An emotionally abusive alcoholic, he spent little time with her as she grew up, leaving her to be taken care of by his live in maid. His neglect to spend time with her, however, left her with an abundance of free time of her own. She started to think and plan, pondering each day about ways to leave the home as soon as she came of age. Then the Great War began.

Paranoia hit Nathan hard after the bombing. His technological genius was noticed by Vault-Tec, who hired him immediately. He secluded himself even further in the quarters in a Vault they provided him. The little freedom Ava had before was taken away from her. She was locked away constantly to prevent her from leaving the Vault; meals were brought to her, but she was sequestered there nonetheless. Despite Ava's constant attempts at escape, she was unable to break free. Over time, she attempted to seem calmer and accept this fate, thinking it would lead her father to underestimate her drive to escape, leading her to an opening. She started to teach herself about the same trade Nathan was in, knowing it may come in handy later.

That opening came when, one day, a colleague of Nathan's, Caleb Smith, came to his quarters for a week to work with him on the Vaults. While he was never supposed to see Ava, she found ways to make herself known to him. She could tell he was intrigued by this girl who had been locked away for so long, and in turn, she feigned a growing romantic interest and attraction to him, manipulating him into viewing her sympathetically by revealing the way Nathan treats her. By the time Caleb was scheduled to leave, she had convinced him to take her to find another place far from her father.

During their escape, Nathan finds out their plan and attempts to stop them. He knocks Caleb unconscious, but Ava kills him to secure her escape. She leaves Caleb in a locked room, knowing that if he leaves, he may be a liability due to knowing the truth of what she's done to Nathan. Shortly after escaping from the Vault, she contacts Vault-Tec, displaying her knowledge of technology in order to find work with them.

INTERVIEWER'S NOTES:
Recommended for Vault 62 because of strong personal interests but still contacted Vault-Tec. It was a surprising turn of events, but it makes her well-suited to control the population. We have confidence that her familarity with isolation will help keep her grounded even after the procedure.

Edited 2016-11-13 05:27 (UTC)

...I feel like I'm supposed to feel sorry for her but I don't, really.

[She has to admit to a begrudging admiration for the patricide, though.]

...All of these are pretty messed up. No wonder they could kill people.

[Thanks for that input, Jeff.]

Goodness. Certainly a very ruthless woman.

[not even the slightest bit sad he killed her, nope :)]

Annnnd...well, last but not least, let's do Ciel. Perhaps he's older than he looks...

[ spoiler: he's not ]

Ciel Phantomhive

EMPLOYEE ID:
VTMGMT62270567

PRIMARY RESIDENCE:
Sands Point, New York, USA

AGE:
13

HEIGHT & WEIGHT:
5'0" / 95 lbs

SKILLS:
Business Management, Tactics and Strategy, Marksmanship

BIOGRAPHY:
Born into old money as the second of a pair of twins, Ciel was frail, sickly, and more introverted than his minute-older brother. Preferring strategy games and mechanics, Ciel became partial to chess, board games, and tinkering with small, toy robotics; things he could do inside in peace and quiet without upsetting his asthma.

Ciel's father, Vincent, worked within the pre-War US government, what would later become the Enclave, before his death. On the twin's tenth birthday, the family was attacked by unknown assailants. Vincent, his wife, Rachel, the butler, and the dog were killed, the house was torched, and the twins kidnapped for nefarious experimental purposes.

For a month or so, the twins (a good "catch" for science) and other children were subjected to biological experimentation while kept in cages underground. During one of the last bout of tests, Ciel inadvertently lucks out of the death lottery, and his brother is taken and subsequently dies. Saving grace comes in the form of an early prototype Assaultron left as a guard in the room. Terrified of dying like his brother, Ciel tries to re-programs the Assaultron, but it instead goes rogue. The Assaultron kills everyone, taking one of Ciel's eyes in the process though allowing him a means of escape. With bunker tools, he de-powers the Assaultron and re-works the programming until it functions from voice-activated commands.

The downside of the companionship is the Assaultron is a machine that can turn against Ciel, and it will explode if destroyed.

Returning home, Ciel takes on the persona of his better brother (whose name had been Ciel). The Assaultron becomes his butler, which he names after his previous dog, Sebastian. With Sebastian's help, Ciel acclimates again to life, taking on his family's money and burnt house, hiring new staff, opening a robotic toy company, and agreeing as successor to a government official to become overseer for one of the Vaults.

INTERVIEWER'S NOTES:
[ COMMENTS REMOVED BY VAULT-TEC HR ]

Ooh, wow. I knew he was interesting. ♡

[Alice why. Alice no. WHY DO YOU LIKE HIM MORE NOW THAT YOU KNOW HE GOT PEOPLE KILLED AND STOLE HIS BROTHER'S IDENTITY.]

What is with all of these people and their very intense stories...?

[Seriously, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALL OF THEM]

Should we check the Vault Door Live Feed, then?

I wonder how intense your story is, Alfie.

[SHE REALLY DOES WONDER... but then she shrugs and reaches over to select it.]

If we're going to walk in there, we might as well know what's waiting for us.

[ A flickering, green monochrome video pops onto the screen. It's very clearly a video feed from outside the Vault Door, as expected.

The camera is clearly very high up, on some kind of mountain, and it gives them a wide view of the wasteland before them. There are skeletons of forests and cities for as far as the eye can see. It seems that the worst did indeed come to pass, and the world fell into ruin after the bombs dropped. The sensors may indicate safe levels of radiation, but there's very little to return to on the surface.

In the distance, they can see a fuzzy, dilapidated skyline that they might know as Atlanta's. It's hard to make out any detail because of the quality of the video, but it seems that the buildings are in disrepair, since the skyline looks almost broken.

The camera can be rotated about 90 degrees in either direction, but the view is largely the same. It's a view of ruin and death, and from this vantage point, it's not even clear if anything is left alive at all. ]

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