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From The Personal Recollection Of Leanne Walker

At that time, I had visited just a couple of Vaults in or around DC.  Of the rest, I'd heard stories about Vaults that scavvers went into and never escaped - or they did, but only when hopelessly insane.  Or the Vaults that stood empty.  Or the Vaults flat-out overrun with hideous monstrosities.  All apparently results of Vault-Tec's 'Societal Preservation Program' (or, in basic terms,"OK, what so-called 'experiments' can we do to the people we trapped in THIS Vault?").

Then I visited Vault 87.

Vault 87 was full of Supermutants, who had made their own style of alterations to the place.  Both the files we dug up at Vault-Tec HQ and the Brotherhood's own records were annoyingly vague about the specifics of Vault 87, so It wasn't until I finally located and accessed a still-usable terminal that this place's story became clear.  Most of the people in Vault 87 became involuntary test subjects for this 'Forced Evolutionary Virus', the same kind of thing the Institute tried with Mom.

In both cases, the alleged scientists were trying to create Super-Soldiers.  One produced Mom, considered a failed experiment, who eventually had me, evaluation still pending.  In Vault 87's case, they produced the first Supermutants.  Congratulations, Vault-Tec, it's a monster.  And ... at some stage, the other V87-dwellers discovered what was going on, resisted, one thing led to another .... and the 'Test Subjects' ended up taking over, and steadily producing more of their kind from whatever humans they could grab ever since.

After reading that, and praying that the b##t##ds responsible were now suffering in a very special corner of Hell, I spent a few minutes thinking about what could be done.  OK, the Lamplighters did a good job of keeping Murder Pass corked up, but some extra work there was needed for a start.  Then there was the Vault's front door, at the bottom of a radioactive crater.  Hmm, if we could get something like a Pre-War earthmover, and just keep pushing rubble in on top of the thing, that would do the job.  Bury the place properly, once and for all.

If it worked, eventually there would be no more Supermutants.  Plans for another day, I hoped.

In the meantime, there I was in a Vault full of Supermutants, looking for a GECK.  I had survived well so far, thanks to the Stealth mode of my armor, and my trusty M82.  The latter had seemed an odd choice of weapon to Jiao - a long-range large-calibre sniper weapon for close-quarters fighting?  But it would stop anything short of a Behemoth stone cold, and this one had special baffling that reduced the noise it made, almost a silencer.

All in all, I was okay, except for the sheer scale of the search area.  It would still have been difficult if I had the official guidebook AND the Vault itself was in perfect 'as built' condition.  The Lab Section seemed a hopeful prospect.  It proved to have several cells for holding 'test subjects'.  A couple housed Centaurs.  DAMN, but I hate those things   One held a human, maybe a Raider, who endlessly paced around.  He completely ignored me, and I didn't like the look in his eyes OR the way he held that Ripper, so I moved on.

... And then, the Supermutant in another cell spoke to me ....

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Apologies for another delay.  Real life can be a real b#t#h sometimes.

Pic - Ms Walker, in Vault 87, with Alexscorpion's M82.