He stood on the old elevator, facing a rusted metal gate.
To his left was an equally rusted control box with a single red button.
The button was so faded it was almost impossible to tell it was made of engineering plastic.
It looked more like a stone daubed with cheap red paint.
He pressed the red button.
The machine let out a hoarse rumble, and the entire platform gave a violent shudder before slowly rising.
The sound of chains and gears grinding together echoed through the shaft, like the low growl of some ancient creature.
Jace gripped the cold metal railing and watched the opening above grow wider and wider.
A circular exit, aimed straight at the grayish-white sky.
The elevator jolted, then stopped.
The cover over the circular exit slid open to both sides, and dazzling sunlight poured down.
Jace blinked.
Wind.
That was the first thing he felt.
Not the recycled, filtered air of a laboratory, but real wind.
It carried the scent of soil, the smell of withered grass, and something he couldn’t quite describe.
A sense of VATS open space.
His skin could feel the air moving across it.
This body, which had not been outside for two hundred years, seemed to have an instinctive closeness to something so natural.
He stood on the lift platform at the entrance of Vault 111 and looked around.
Good.
No crows.
It seemed the Institute had not started monitoring Vault 111 yet.
Then again, he honestly had no idea how to tell a synth crow from an ordinary crow.
He took a few steps forward, then stopped.
At the foot of the hill lay Sanctuary Hills.
Jace had seen this view countless times.
In the game, in guides, in screenshots posted by the player community.
The low wooden houses, the iconic red gas station, the little bridge over the river.
He could draw the whole scene with his eyes closed.
But seeing it in person was something else entirely.
Sanctuary Hills in the game was pixels, textures, and scenery rendered by a lighting engine.
What lay before him now was a ruin.
At the bottom of the hill stood fourteen single-family homes.
The roofs of some had already caved in by more than half, their exposed beams pointing toward the sky like ribs.
Others had collapsed completely.
The small bridge was still there.
Some of its planks were missing, revealing the river beneath, but the main structure remained intact.
In a timeline where the Great War had never happened, this should have been the best season for viewing fall foliage in the Commonwealth.
But years of raging radiation storms had changed everything.
The trees had mutated in order to survive.
To avoid the cold winds that blew in from the Glowing Sea to the southwest from November through March, carrying massive amounts of radioactive material with them, their leaves had fallen early.
Only bare branches remained, pointing toward the sky in bleak silence.
The whole hillside was gray-brown.
The trees had no life in them.
The entire world looked like an old faded photograph, or as though it were covered in a layer of dust that could never be washed away.
Dim, oppressive, lifeless.
Two hundred and ten years.
Jace suddenly understood what that number meant.
It was not the “two hundred years after the Great War” he had read about in the game.
It was not the “October 23, 2287” displayed on the console.
This was a real, living world.
People had once lived in those wooden houses.
Lights had once shone behind those windows.
People had once gone to that gas station to top up their coolant, buy a bottle of Nuka-Cola, and chat with the owner for a few minutes.
He looked down the hill and said nothing for a long time.
A strange feeling welled up inside him.
It was not fear.
It was not sadness.
It was not even confusion.
It was just emptiness.
The world he came from, the world with food delivery, phones, games, heavy transport trucks, and steel coils, no longer existed.
It was gone in space, and it was gone in time.
Everything from that world, no matter how he looked at it, was already two hundred years in the past.
The people he knew, the places he had been, the restaurants where he had eaten, all of it had turned to dust.
And he, a gaming shut-in who had been killed by a truck, was standing among these gray-white ruins in a stranger’s body, looking at a world he had only ever seen in a game.
Jace took a breath, then slowly let it out.
The wind scattered the white mist of his breath.
He looked down at the Pip-Boy on his wrist, the prototype he had taken from the storage room.
The metal casing was cold, and the screen glowed, displaying the time and radiation readings.
It really was heavy.
Strapped to his wrist, it made his left arm feel as if it had gained an obvious counterweight.
He flexed his wrist, trying to get used to the unfamiliar burden.
Then he saw figures on the far side of the small bridge below.
Not Ghouls.
Not mutated creatures.
People.
Three of them, dressed in rough cloth and carrying guns.
Jace instinctively took a step back and hid in the shadow behind a nearby tree trunk.
He narrowed his eyes.
This body’s excellent eyesight let him make out their movements clearly.
Two men and one woman, standing on the bridge and saying something to each other.
One of the men pointed toward the far bank, and another nodded.
Their movements were cautious and alert.
They were not hurrying along.
They looked more like they were searching.
Strangers.
In this world, what did strangers mean?
Raiders?
Settlers?
Something else?
Jace did not know.
All he knew was that he had no real understanding of this cruel world.
His knowledge of the game could tell him the layout of the Vault.
It could tell him Sturges was a Synth.
It could tell him where to find power armor.
But it could not tell him what he should do right now.
He watched the three figures slowly approach from the other end of the bridge and tightened his grip on the 10mm pistol in his hand.
In the game, this gun was just the starting weapon from the beginner area.
Low damage, short range, something players stopped caring about the moment they got power armor.
But now that he was holding it, Jace realized how heavy it really was.
The metal slide was ice-cold.
The anti-slip texture on the grip dug into his palm.
On the inside of the trigger guard, a line of small text had been engraved.
“Springfield Armory, Manufactured in 2076.”
This was not a “starting weapon” from a game.
This was standard-issue equipment distributed to Vault 111 before the war, prepared for the soldiers and scientists responsible for guarding the Vault when the apocalypse came.
It might not have been used many times, but it had absolutely been designed, manufactured, and issued for the purpose of killing.
The magazine was fully loaded.
This was not the sort of hand-loaded ammunition commonly found in the Wasteland, with dented casings, powder charges measured by feel, and a constant risk of jamming or blowing up in the chamber.
This was real military ammunition, produced on a pre-War armory’s assembly line.
Every round’s charge was accurate down to the milligram, the primers were perfectly sealed, and the bullets were as smooth as if they had just come out of the mold.
Two hundred years old, and good as new.
Jace lowered the muzzle and rested his thumb on the safety.
He had checked it back in the Vault.
The chamber was clean, the firing mechanism worked smoothly, and when he stripped the rounds from the magazine, the brass casings still gleamed without a trace of moisture damage.
Pre-war craftsmanship.
Pre-war quality.
A pre-War tool for killing.
The wind kept blowing.
The grayish-white sky did not change.
He stepped down from the small platform and onto the slope leading downhill.
The soil beneath his feet was soft, overgrown with withered yellow weeds.
With every step, fine dust rose from the soles of his shoes.
The three people came over the small bridge.
Tattered clothes.
Crude weapons.
One of them had black stripes painted across his face.
Raiders.
The one in front suddenly stopped and signaled for the others to stay alert.
“Something’s there,” he said in a rough voice.
The other two immediately raised their guns.
Jace held his breath and hid behind the ruins of a house.
The lead Raider swept his gaze toward the ruins across the bridge, right where Jace was hiding.
“Over there.”
“Who’s there?!”
“Come out!”
Jace held his breath, crouched behind the base of the ruined wall, and did not move a muscle.
He was sure he had not made a sound.
His steps had been light.
He had not stepped on broken tiles or branches.
He had even forced his breathing down as much as possible.
Besides, he had circled around from the hillside, and the wind direction was right.
Even if he had a scent, it should not have drifted over.
Before Jace could react, a voice came from behind him.
It had a metallic quality, an old-fashioned British accent, and a cheerfulness that was honestly fucking absurd.
“Hello, guest from the Vault.
Please allow me to introduce myself: Codsworth, a multi-functional household robot who has faithfully served Humans since 2077.
Although the current circumstances are somewhat less than ideal, for example, these uninvited gentlemen clearly lack basic manners, I am still delighted to see you!”
Jace turned his head.
A silver robot glided out from the shadows on the other side of the gas station.
It had a cylindrical body, three nimble multi-jointed mechanical arms, and three round “eyes” staring straight at him.
Its outer shell was covered in rust and bullet marks, but some parts were unnaturally clean.
Especially the circular saw.
It was bright, polished, and looked almost factory-new.
Codsworth.
The only “resident” still left in Sanctuary Hills.
Jace’s game knowledge began running at full speed in his mind.
Mister Handy.
Manufactured by General Atomics International.
A civilian household robot, with a flamer available as optional equipment.
Its offensive power was not exactly impressive, and it was nowhere near the military version of the same type, Mister Gutsy.
But against a few low-level Raiders carrying homemade pipe weapons…
“You fucking…” the lead Raider shouted.
“Take that metal bastard apart!”
All three guns aimed at Codsworth at once.
Codsworth’s “eyes” turned slightly, its tone still cheerful.
“Esteemed guest, I recommend taking a few steps back.
The next operation may produce some…
rather undignified stains.”
Jace instinctively stepped back and ducked aside.
The next second, flames burst from Codsworth’s chassis, and the whole machine shot toward the Raiders like a cannonball.
One mechanical arm extended a humming circular saw.
From the end of another, orange-red fire sprayed out.
A flamer.
Gunshots.
Screams.
The sound of metal cutting through flesh.
Jace stood where he was, watching a one-sided slaughter.
Thirty seconds later, all three Raiders were lying on the ground.
Codsworth hovered in midair, blood still dripping from the circular saw on its mechanical arm.
It turned toward him and said in that same cheerful voice,
“Guest, the trash has been cleared away.
By the way, would you like to hear a joke?”
Jace opened his mouth, but for a moment, he had no idea what to say.
Two hundred and ten years.
This robot had stayed here for a full two hundred and ten years.
It had seen the bombs fall.
It had watched its master leave and never return.
It had watched Sanctuary Hills turn from a community into a ruin.
Alone, in this place where not even ghosts remained, it had kept watch for two centuries.
“…What joke?” Jace asked.
Codsworth’s “eyes” brightened, as if it was pleased that its guest was willing to listen.
“Do you know how to make someone wait for nothing?”
Jace froze.
Codsworth was silent for three seconds.
Then it said,
“I’ll tell you later.”
The wind passed through the ruins, carrying the smell of blood and dust.
Jace looked at the rust-covered robot and smiled faintly.
“…Did you come up with that joke yourself, or was it from before the war?”
“It existed before the war.
I modified it slightly, guest,” Codsworth replied, still cheerful.
“So what was the version you just told?”
“Oh, that was my improved version.” Codsworth’s “eyes” spun.
“The original requires the other person to wait before the punchline works.
But I have already waited two hundred and ten years, guest.
I do not wish to wait any longer.”
Jace opened his mouth, but again, he did not know what to say.
Jace recognized this robot.
Not “knew of it.”
Recognized it.
He had seen it thousands of times on a screen, heard it tell hundreds of terrible jokes, watched it wander around Sanctuary Hills handing things to the player and occasionally grumbling.
There, it had been an NPC.
A program.
A game character he knew so well it could not possibly be more familiar.
But now it was standing right in front of him.
The rust marks on its shell were exactly as he remembered them.
Its way of speaking was exactly as he remembered.
Even the rhythm of those round “eyes” turning was exactly the same.
This world was unfamiliar.
This body was unfamiliar.
This era was unfamiliar.
But Codsworth was real.
It was right here.
Just like in the game.
Just like in his memory.
Jace stared at the robot, and for some reason, he felt himself relax.
It was like walking for a long time through a completely unfamiliar city, only to suddenly spot a convenience store on the corner that he used to visit all the time.
Like getting lost and finally seeing a road sign he recognized