Stories from the Vault

Chapter 1.

The Facility

Monday, 7:30. Just another uneventful start to another uneventful week.

There's only one bus that comes this far out into the desert, and there's only one person on board when it does. Chad Hansen always rides the No.13 all the way to the desert-turnaround, which is only technically a stop. In reality, the part of the city that was meant to be serviced by this part of the line, ended up never being built. The bus-stop, and a small loop on the side of the road however, remained.

Not far from here is the junction, where a well kept service road splits off of Route 71, and goes straight into the middle of nowhere. Right to the Red Mesa Savings Bank.

It's basically a giant vault, serving as a... giant... vault.

Yeah, I don't know what you expected to hear.

Anyway, young Chad Hansen here rides the No.13 all the way to the turnaround, from where he walks roughly 300 meters to the junction. There, he waits roughly 5 minutes, at which time an older model maroon station wagon stops to pick him up.

It's his colleague, Philly Collin, and from here, they drive all the way down the single-lane road to The Bank.

Philly always picks up a coffee for Chad. Cappuchino, with a bit of cinnamon.

In return, Chad always picks up a newspaper for Philly, and they read the joke section on the way.

Their daily ritual finishes, when they arrive at The Bank, change into their uniforms, and take up their posts at the entrance.

Chad is the younger one of the duo, having recently graduated from college. Getting settled in your field of choice can be quite a long and cumbersome process, and Chad wanted to earn some money while he was working on that, so he took the first job that had a cool ring to it.

Guarding a bank! Sounds pretty neat right? Yeah... well this one happens to be in the middle of nowhere. But the kid doesn't mind. He's made a good friend in his colleague, Philly Collin.

Philly had been at The Bank for as long as he could remember.

...Which is pretty sad, considering it's actually been 5 years. But the man has nothing to worry about, his short-term memory works perfectly.

He only had a partner in his first year on the job, but the fella started going mad out here, and had to be taken away. Since then, Philly's only company was made up of The Bank's manager, who travelled out to his office here very rarely, and the truck-crews, who handled the money's transportation.

But, the recently hired Chad Hansen seemes to not only be preforming well at his job, but he and Philly get along very well!

Chad's only been a guard for 4 months, but the pair has already made a morning routine, has a few inside jokes among themselves, and rumors speculate, that they are now trying to come up with a secret handshake.

Philly's been a good mentor, and Chad's been a fast learner.

This morning however turned out to be the start of some unusual occourences.

This first of which was a call, the duo recieved shortly after arriving.

"Mr. Collin and Mr. Hansen, this is Director Credit speaking. I have bad news and some good news for Ted McAdams, please relay them, when he arrives to work today."

The driver in question arrived soon after, looking rather deflated. It wasn't like him at all, but Philly knew he's been having a rough time ever since his partner was involved in a criminal trial, and got fired as a result.

"Ted, you're here!" he greeted the driver cheerfully. After looking around for a moment, Ted looked at his colleague a little confused. "What's going on?" he asked "Where are the others?"

"About that." Philly said in an apologetic tone "You're alone for this week."

The driver didn't seem to react, so after a small pause, he continued. "All the other trucks are waiting to be serviced. It seems you're the only one, who's been taking good care of the equipment!"

Still, no reaction. Ted's eyes looked completely dead, his face was less expressive than a piece of wood, and he just stood there like a statue. Still, Philly continued on.

"But management said to tell you, they'll dobule your salary for the time being!"

This revelation didn't change much either. Nothing seemed to cheer the man up, and Philly thought it best not to keep trying, as to not waste their precious time.

They loaded up the van, and soon Ted was on his way, disappearing into a mirage.

The two guards were left alone once more, and it was time to return to their duty, which meant standing at the entrance, "guarding" the place.

Of course, for an institution like the Red Mesa Savings Bank, it was manditory to have at least some security personell, but come on! Who would even bother to come aaall the way out here to try and rob the place?

Set up a few cameras, more than one alarm and you're done!

But, after purchasing the old building and the surrounding land at a steep discount from the government, management was obligated to have at least two guards stationed at the entrance, at all times.

The employees were never told why this was the case, and they weren't sure if even the higher-ups knew. They just had to be there.

One can imagine that the days spent here as a security guard are nothing short of boring. Still, Philly and Chad always managed to find something to spend the time with. Today, it was a high-stakes rummy party. They played for an hour with a 10 minute break, then play for another hour and so on. The goal was to see who has the most wins by the end of the day, and the loser would buy lunch the next day.

By the early afternoon, Philly was two wins ahead, but Chad had a good hand and was just about to put all his cards down to win, when the two saw some black looking smoke, coming from under the doors. They threw away the cards, and rushed in. Behind the main entrance was a small lobby, which branched into three hallways. To the left was the main office. To the right were the bathroom, the lockers, a broom closet, and stairs to the top of the building. Lastly, at the end of the short hallway straight ahead, was the entrance to the vault that took up most of The Bank's interior.

The air wasn't filled with smoke however. It was still there, but only at ankle-hight. It was black like tar, and neither men knew what to make of it.

Philly went to check the vault doors, and Chad looked inside the office. Everything looked to be in order. No one came in without their notice, nor was anything, or anyone here to begin with.

Following the "Man in the bag" incident a week prior, the guards recieved special permission to look inside the vault, once per day. To do this, they had to type in a one-time use code. This opened the doors. Once inside, they had to repeat the process with a different code, but one that works the same. They had only 15 seconds to do this, before the alarm would be triggered. If done correctly, this neutralized the security system, and allowed people to walk in and look around. If they failed however, they had to exit before the time ran out, and close the doors. This reset both the alarm, and automatically locked the doors.

However, failing also meant they could only retry the next day, as aside from scheduled money pick-ups or deliveries, the guards only recieved one additional code for each panel.

Philly stopped for a moment, pondering wether to open the vault or not, but he ultimayely decided against it. The smoke wasn't coming from in there.

Chad returned, saying the same thing about the office.

The only thing left was to check the right hallway.

They saw the smoke flowing from that direction. It came from one of the toilets.

Of course, it was the one that was taped over with black and yellow stripes. It also had "Do not enter! Under repair!" written on it with chalk.

They opened the door, and an inpenetrable darkness greeted them. It was the same black smoke that was on the floor, but this time, it formed a wall in the doorway and didn't flow out, when they opened it.

"Cinders and ashes!" the young man cried, looking at the thick nothingness in front of them.

"....I think this is just smoke. Though it doesn't smell like anything..." Philly replied, but didn't take his eyes off of the gaping darkness. Or so Chad thought, as his colleague rarely, if ever removed his sunglasses. It didn't really matter though, because he didn't have his on, and he still couldn't see two inches into the room.

"This is impossible" they both thought "What in the world is this substance? It's like a black hole in there, or something..."

"Anyway, we better check it out" Philly decided. "Go get the flashlights! I'll lock the front doors, just to be safe."

Chad nodded, and ran to the closet. Miscellaneous equipment was stored in here, but only security personell had keys to it. He grabbed the lamps and a pack of batteries, both for the lights and their radios.

The two met up back at the open bathroom door. They looked at it for a few moments, still a little unsure about going in. After all, this wasn't an everyday accourence, in fact, nothing of the sort had ever happened before, that they could remember.

"Well..." Chad began "Are we gonna stand around all day, or are we going in?"

He tried to sound determined, but his voice didn't quite back up his words. Still he didn't sound scared or anything, just a little sceptical of the whole situation.This is what he told himself, anyway. His friend turned his light on and nudged him in the arm slightly. "Yeah, let's go."

They stepped into the black void beyond the doorsill. So far, their flashlights didn't help much. It was like the darkness swallowed up all the light that entered it. The two men ended up on opposite walls. Philly was on the one that also had the entrance, while Chad was right across the room. The young man was slowly inching along with his back to the wall, when he felt something. He didn't feel the smooth surface of the tiles anymore. In their place was cold, rough steel. Another small step sideways, and now he could also hear crackling under his feet. Crackling of tiles. They probably fell off, revealing whatever it was on the wall.

"Hey, uh Philly?" he called out "I think I got something." They both pointed their lights to the spot. Before them was an old, thick looking steel door, painted red with some white letters on it. The paint was chipping in places, but the words could still be made out.

"Emergency Entrance" Philly read out loud "Emergency entrance? What's that for? I mean, I've seen emergency exits before, but an emergency entrance..."

His colleague couldn't argue with that logic, so the two men just stood there in silence for a few moments, confused about all of this.

"We should report this..." Chad suggested.

"Yes... we should...." his partner pondered "But we should make sure that there's nothing dangerous in there first. Then, when it turns out it's nothing serious, we can report it. How's that sound?"

The young man just nodded. He usually trusted his friend with these types of decisions, and so far he was right to. After all, Philly was definitely more expirienced, though this didn't give him a big head, and he always listened to Chad, if he felt something was amiss.

This time however, both of them were too curious to see what's at the bottom of this strangeness, so they started trying to open the door. It's important to mention, that it wasn't a normal-sized entrance, but small one instead. It was about the size of a large ventillation shaft. Sure enough, when the old door creaked open on it's rusty hinges, the space behind it looked very claustrophobic. It looked just about big enough for a person to crawl through. There was no ominous smoke in there, but at this point, they couldn't not go in.

Both men swallowed hard at the sight, then Chad turned to Philly with a very serious look on his face. In a moment, he realized what his partner was thinking. They raized their fists up in the air, then quickly swung down, like they were trying to clobber one another.

"Scissors!" Philly exclaimed at the same time as Chad yelled "Rock!"

"All right kid" Collin relented with a smile "You go on ahead, and I'll be right on your tail."

"If you can keep up!" he grinned, as he dove into the shaft. Before Philly would go after him, he made sure the door won't close on them, while they are in there, as it would probably be very tedious to open from the inside. When he was sure it was safe, he climbed into small space aswell.

Though it was still pretty dark in here, the flashlights seemed to be working better, than in the previous room. The structure creaked and groaned under them, as they kept moving forward. Surprising to them, was the lack of dust in here. Judging from the look of the door in the bathroom, this structure had been sealed off for quite a while, so it was very unlikely for someone to have cleaned it. Sure, it wasn't in pristine condition, but it looked much better than either man would have thought it will.

After a few more minutes of crawling in mostly silence, the pair reached the end of the road. Not literally, as there was more of the vent ahead of them.

The problem with it was the, about 3 meters long, missing section. By the uneven edges and scratch-markings, Chad thought it must have been torn off by something. He looked down, and saw the ground, fairly close. He thought it would be easy to get down, but positioning yourself at the edge of a broken metal duct turned out to not be as simple, as it might have looked at a first glance. As a result, he landed flat on his face.

Philly on the other hand jumped down like he's been doing this forever, and landed on his feet without an issue.

"Hey Kid, you okay?" he asked half mindedly, as he was looking around the place. His partner gave him the thumbs-up, still laying face-down, and mumbled something along the lines of "Fine, I'm fine", though it was barely audible.

He too got up, dusted his uniform and joined Philly in searching the place.

They didn't know how far they have descended, though this place, whatever it was, must have been quite deep. Even in only the light of their lamps, it was clear that they have landed in some sort of storage unit, like a smaller warehouse.

Everything around them looked like it's not been moved in the past 3 decades. Chad found it strange, how much stuff actually was around them. Crates, boxes, tools, everything. Thrown about the place, like it was someone's only job, to make a mess with everything they found in here.

"Okay, let's think about this." Philly said, and faced his partner "So if that smoke wasn't coming from here, it must have been the pipes, that lead to the bathroom, right?"

"That would make sense. So you're saying we should find those pipes and see what we can do?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying!" And with that and a high five, the matter was settled. No matter how creepy the place looked already, the pair didn't seem to be phased in the slightest.

As they went through the door, they found themselves in a strange hallway. It was decked with tiles, like they would be at hospitals and laboratories. Chad also found himself, pulling on this thread of thought. "Do, do you think we're in some scienc-y building?" He asked, as they moved slowly along.

"Like a research lab?" his partner asked "Yeah, I could see that being the case..."

The two men made their way through the eerie facility. The structure showed signs of cosmetic decay all around, as of course, everything around them was decades old and long since out of use. That's not to say out of order however!

"Hey!" Philly turned to his friend "You know what would make this a lot easier?"

"Uuuuuhhh, some more light, I suppose?" Chad answered, as he walked past Philly.

"Exactly!" he exclaimed "So we should find a way to switch on the power first!"

They reached the end of the corridor, and through dobule doors that looked just like the ones they had up at The Bank, the two guards entered a large open space. It was bigger than the warehouse they initially landed in. There were two more floors above them, with open corridors, looking down on to the ground floor. It was like a gathering hall of sorts.

The strangest of all, was the dimm light, that filled the space. Neither Philly, nor Chad could figure out where it was coming from, as there was no window, or light-scource above them. Yet, it still looked like faint moonlight, when it creeps into a dark room at night.

On their way here, they checked a few doors. Most of them were locked, but all the rooms behind the open ones told the same story.

A lot of office equipment, a lot of research-paper, boxes, tables and tools, threwn about. Not destroyed in a fit of rage, but hastily misplaced in a mad dash. Like this place was left behind in a mere few minutes.

This great hall was no different.

Long dead potted plants, either smashed, broken, or just turned over. Next to them were desks and chairs, also all over the place, upside down or on their side, or perhaps just pushed away from where they were meant to be.

Unlike the top to bottom tiled corridor they just came through, this great space was a lot more modest in it's appearence, with originally white walls, that were by now dirty, and full of cobwebs. At the back of the hall stood the only piece of furniture, that looked to have been left in it's intended place. A reception, or some sorts of informational post.

Behind it on the wall, were some faded and dirty shapes, with lines running from them all around, on the walls. As the duo got closer, they could make out that it was actually a map of the whole facility, with each area having a different color, and than a line of any of the colors could lead a person to their desired destination.

There was an area labeled "Maintenance", colored maroon on the map. The line lay across the entire length of the right-side, or according to the map, the northern wall.

At it's end was a door that said "Under-underground maintenance". There was a piece of paper taped on it. It was yellow and looked rather fragile, but the words on it were still clearly readable. It was a message from one employee, to the others.

"Do NOT enter, unless it's to reach the Generator!" it read.

The two men looked at each other.

"Well, it's maintenance right?" Chad cheered with an un-sure undertone "The pipes we got to check ought to be in there aswell!"

Philly stared at the door for a bit before answering. Or, at least his friend only believed he was looking at the door, considering Philly was still very much wearing his sunglasses. "Yeah, I bet they are." he said, almost casually "So, are we gonna stand around here all day? Or should we go in?"

Chad smirked a little, as he grabbed the handle and pulled the door open, revealing a staircase, leading them deeper still. He closed his eyes, and took a few deep breaths, readying himself to whatever might just be ahead of them.

"Yeah..." he said as he turned his flashlight back on, and started carefully making his way down "Let's go."