"How did it come to this, America? How did your leaders allow the most powerful nation on Earth… to die? The answer is really quite simple: Incompetence. Incompetence at the highest echelons of power. We put our trust, our faith, in halfwits. Our intrepid leaders had everything they wanted! Power. Wealth. Prestige. And it made them lazy, America. Oh yes, and laziness breeds stupidity."

Grace Arlyn knew that there were three different types of cloud. Cumulus, Stratus, Cirrus. Cumulus, Stratus, Cirrus. Cumulus, Stratus, Cirrus. She also knew how clouds were formed. She knew that sunlight warms the water's surface, evaporating the water and forming a warm layer above it. The rising air currents organise themselves into thermals, and these rising parcels of water vapour rise to form clouds. She'd done a surprise test on clouds when she was nine. She'd once made a cloud inside a mason jar using some ice cubes, boiling water and a can of her father's deodorant. When she was eleven, she'd been caught up in some daydream about playing outdoors and had walked straight into Old Lady Palmer, who'd scolded her gently for having her head in the clouds. When she was sixteen, she'd blown clouds of hazy smoke up towards the ceiling, the sound of giddy laughter shuddering in the air. She took a desperate sort of comfort from these memories as the storm began to gather overhead, casting a sickly green glow across the wasteland. It spread like a cancer across the horizon until she could feel its growing violence in her bones. She ached for the destruction it would bring, desperate for a storm to match her rage.

The wasteland soon delivered. With an almighty crack that shook the ground beneath her, the rumbling sky came alive with thundering ferocity. Rain hammered against the earth; jagged forks of white-green lightning pierced the horizon and crackled through her veins. Her entire body was surging with ecstasy as she raised her face to the sky and opened her body to the storm. Breathless, she shook out her hair and reached towards the quaking sky. Icy droplets kissed her skin and shook her back to life, enveloping her in a freezing rush of adrenaline. She almost skipped along the glistening road as she remembered every night spent dreaming about this moment, about every ice-cold shower taken with closed eyes as she imagined the rush of rainfall down her spine. She raced headlong through the oceanic avalanche until the hazy blur of buildings became visible in the distance. As she headed towards it - keeping one hand tense on the pistol shoved in her pocket - she found a sign that stood out against the blurry sheet of rain.

WELCOME TO CARRINGTON - ENJOY YOUR STAY!

The town was alive with activity, despite the impending nightfall and pouring rain. It was spread across a short stretch of wasteland like a shoddily stitched blanket, pulled together from both pre-war and post-apocalyptic thread. Some buildings were similar to the ones she'd seen back in Springvale, made from crumbly brick and partially collapsed roofs, some surrounded by crooked picket fences. Others seemed to have been built more recently, made entirely from scrap metal and wood. By the time she reached the entrance to the town, the rain had died down enough to allow a clear view of the people who lived in it. Most wore ragtag pieces of clothing that she supposed must have been scavenged - button-down shirts, leather coats, ratty jeans and an assortment of different patched-up hats were visible among the gathering crowd. Others were more heavily armoured, dressed uniformly in black metal and helmets. Some of the townspeople eyed her with suspicion, but quickly brushed past her to gather in the centre of the town. Confused, curious, eager to find some shelter in a place that wasn't out to kill her, she fell in with the crowd and kept her head bowed low.

Until a screaming voice pierced through the storm.

"Help me! Help me! Get off me! What the hell is wrong with you?! Somebody help!"

Her gaze snapped upwards. She stretched on her tiptoes in search of the voice, managing to squeeze between two locals and finally get a view of what they all were gathering around. A tall wooden post stood dead in the centre of the newly formed circle of townsfolk, surrounded by barrels of fire and twisting piles of hempen rope. Stacks of wood stood around the crude post. Directly across from where she was standing, a number of armed guards were dragging a screaming women across the town, towards the murmuring congregation. The rain had ceased but the thunder was loud, and still this stranger's voice broke through the waging war in the sky as she thrashed against her captors. Grace looked frantically at the faces around her, searching for an expression other than indifference, other than vague annoyance and discontent.

"What's going on?" She asked, as the captured woman twisted and turned in the arms of one of the silent guards. "Why aren't you doing something?!"

"Ain't y'ever heard of a goddamn witch?" Replied the man nearest to her, from behind a thick grey tangle of beard. His eyes were hidden by a low cap.

"Witch?" She repeated blankly, watching as the woman broke free for just a second, and took a few bounding steps before the guards dragged her to the ground.

"You don't live here. What th' hell you doin' here, anyway?" He spat on the ground and returned his eyes to the scene before them. "It's town custom, s'just what we do to folks like her. You best get gone, stranger. That witch ain't gonna be pretty much longer."

"What did she do?" Grace pressed, quickly growing frantic. "Is she a criminal? What are they gonna do to her?"

"Jesus Christ, kid." He turned to face her. "She's trouble, jes' like the rest of 'em. Come waltzin' in with eyes like thunder an' lips like blood, that's what the Mayor says. Thought it was stupid for a while, but he meant what he said. They bring storms with 'em, jes' like this 'un. They store their treasure in their veins, they're devils of impurity - they drag men off in the middle of the night like those Black Widow spiders, then they bite off their heads and feast on their blood. Used to jus' call 'em whores until the Mayor told us their true name. Goddamn witches, you can tell just by lookin' at her. We burn 'em, and the rest of 'em keep away for a while. Crops get good, weather gets brighter, sick people suddenly get better. It's a bit o' fun every now and then, bit of excitement."

Grace looked on, eyes wide with horror as the struggling girl was thrown against the post. Her arms were twisted forcefully behind her back.

"Look, stranger, this is just how it is. Some of us don't like it too much, some of us think it's a show. Doesn't matter. We round up witches and they let us stay here, they keep us safe. Me? I don't mind throwin' a couple o' whores to the fire if that's all it takes to keep the Mayor at peace. Jus' sit tight and yell like the others, that'll get you a bed for the night, place to stay a while. There's no helpin' this one now."

She felt as though she was rooted to the spot, unable to avert her eyes as the scene unfolded before her. A guard tied the woman's hands behind her back, keeping her secured to the post. Another approached with a cannister of gasoline. The crowd began to yell and curse. The woman's eyes darted from face to face, her breathing heavy and laboured as her struggling finally ceased. The guard lashed gasoline across the piles of rope and stacks of wood, drenching every inch of the twisted pyre they'd made for this screaming stranger. Another lit a torch with one of the burning barrels. The woman's eyes locked on Grace's, and for a moment the town was silent. The world was still. This desperate, wide-eyed stranger with sweat-slick hair and a voice like a hurricane looked her dead in the eyes, and mouthed one thing.

Help me.

Grace dropped to her knees. She unzipped her backpack and rooted through it, mind whirring with a million things that could go wrong. She remembered panicked seconds of leaving home behind, of packing her things and saying goodbye. She'd swiped her desk clean that day - it had been a Monday and Amata had been in her room that night and she'd stayed up late revising her medical notes and they'd considered getting high and then decided against it, they'd played ping pong over her desk and she'd left a sandwich half-eaten on her counter before heading to bed.

She knew exactly what to do.

She found the ping-pong ball first, her hand closing tight around it. Next was her penknife from the stationary kit she'd been gifted one birthday. The woman began to scream again. Grace's eyes darted upwards and she found that the stranger was dripping with gasoline, spitting it on the ground. She punctured a hole through the ping-pong ball with her knife. Her hand slipped and she nicked her thumb. She searched for her pencil, buried among piles of crumpled paper, and stuck it through the newly-pierced hole. Finally, she moved on to her half-finished sandwich, still wrapped in aluminium foil. She tossed the sandwich, straightened the foil, covered the ball and the pencil entirely then slid the pencil out. She rose to her feet. Slung her bag over her shoulder. The torch had alright been cast to the ground and fire was eating up the coils of rope, climbing up the stacks of wood and licking at the pyre. Grace tapped at the man with the beard. "I need a cigarette," she said, but his attention was fixed on the spreading flame. "I need a cigarette! I need a lighter! Hey! Can you hear me?"

He slapped something small and plastic into her palm without glancing in her direction. Grace could barely contain her terror and delight. She wrapped her free hand around the lighter, ignited it with a soft click and held it beneath her newly-designed smoke bomb. A thick white cloud began to billow from its chimney. Grace shoved through the rest of the crowd, pushing her way towards the helpless woman whose bare feet were now bright red and blistering. She dropped the bomb in the centre of the crowd. The smoke spread in a hazy dome around the pyre, creating a thick grey barrier across her vision as she fumbled with the ropes that bound the woman to her post. She pulled them loose. The stranger fell heavily on her hands and knees, but didn't waste another second before scrambling to her feet. The guards drew their weapons. Grace took the stranger's hand. Together, they sprinted across the road ahead and left the blinding haze behind as bullets echoed behind them.

The stranger caught her breath before Grace did. The rain had picked up again and was lashing at their backs, flooding the wasteland's quiet ambience and drenching them both to the skin. The witch - though Grace doubted those accusations had been true - made a futile attempt at wringing out her sopping wet hair, then signalled to her rescuer to head towards the abandoned diner just off the road. She swung open the glass door and ushered Grace inside, then shut it behind her to dull the raging storm. She leaned her head back against the door for a moment and shut her eyes, then made her way across the cracked tiles with a noticeable limp in her step. Her pain was evident in every unsteady movement, until she sank down into one of the booths and took the time to examine herself. Her wrists were red and raw, and to Grace's visible horror, barbed wire was twisted around her legs and blistering feet, leaving dried-up trails of blood across her bare skin.

"Is there anything I can do?" Grace asked, gingerly setting her backpack down on the table next to the bleeding stranger.

"You could spare me some Med-X and clear out," she suggested with a pained wince. "You already saved my life, I owe you enough."

"You don't have to repay me," she assured her, taking the useless supplies out of her bag and setting them aside before rooting for her medical equipment.

The woman raised an eyebrow and looked her up and down. She really was beautiful, Grace noticed, beneath the sharp-edged layers of hostility. Her eyes were sly and her muscles lean and tight; she'd shaved off half of her wild tangle of black hair, leaving one side bare and the other to fall just below her chest. Her lips were full and dark, and there was something graceful about the way she pulled the barbs from her shivering legs. Grace was painfully aware of every clumsy movement as she produced her medical kit and the syringe from within it, then rushed to the woman's side before she did herself any more damage.

"Jesus Christ," the woman breathed, though more in surprise than pain as Grace told her to hold still before injecting the Med-X into her wrist. There was a slanting smirk on her lips when she asked, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I'm qualified," she assured her with a hasty smile, setting the empty needle on the table then moving for the jagged string of wire on the stranger's right leg. "You don't have to worry about getting an infection or anything - I'm a doctor. Promise."

"That's the worrying thing," she replied, but said no more until the painkillers kicked in and one leg was half-free of wire. "Tell me you scavenged that vault suit from somewhere, and tell me that fish-out-of-water thing you've got going on is just your natural look. Otherwise, you're in a nuclear barrel of shit."

"Actually, I'm from Vault 101. It's my first time out here and, uh, things haven't been pleasant."

"Oh, Christ. Christ. What the hell are you doing out here? And how long since you got out?"

"A few hours, I think. It's, uh... Well, it's a long story."

"I've got the time. More than you, by the looks of it. Vault kids don't live long around here, trust me."

Grace frowned and set the second string of wire aside. "There are more vaults around here? Open vaults?"

"Sure, I've seen a few. None of 'em are actually active, though. Hell, you don't wanna see the mess they made of those poor bastards. Vault-Tec, I mean. I've been scavving through a couple, came across some pretty nasty shit on those terminals they keep. Social experiments, chemical tests, the same sick story over and over again. But all those other vaults are dead. No one comes out of there, because everybody died in them centuries ago. Vault 101, it's the only one still functioning. We get runners every now and then, so I'm told. Every few years you find another dead bastard in a vault suit with no one to bury them."

Grace gave a nervous laugh and sat on the chair opposite this stranger, suddenly wary. "That's not true," she replied. "My dad was the first person to ever leave the vault. That's why I'm out here," she added, "I'm looking for him."

"Aw, hell. Heard about the brainwashing they do in that place. What was it again? Born in the vault, die in the vault, all hail the Man in Charge?"

"Yeah, exactly," she snapped, suddenly defensive. It was her who had just arrived out of the vault, she knew what it was like down there much better than this stranger did. "But it wasn't brainwashing! We were safe there, we were happy. No one killed each other or tried to- tried to hurt each other, and no one ever had to-"

"Alright, alright." The stranger raised her hands in surrender. "Doesn't matter to me, alright? Only thing that concerns me now is where you're going next. Believe it or not, Carrington's a pretty hospitable place compared to anything else you're likely to find out here. From the look of you, I'd say you've had a couple of close-calls with some raiders, right?" She didn't wait for a response. "Trust me, stranger, those assholes are a walk in the park compared to the Geiger counter monstrosities going on across the water. Where is your dad, anyway?" She leaned over the table a little too closely for Grace's comfort.

"I- I don't know," she admitted. "He never told me."

"Fantastic," she said, rolling her eyes and sitting back down. "Looks like we're stuck with each other, then."

"Hold on - what?"

"You saved my life, I owe you one, and-"

"You don't have to-"

"And," she continued sharply, "I could use a little excitement. Don't get me wrong, I could probably do a lot better under usual circumstances, but these aren't, and our fiery little friends back in Carrington took all my stuff."

"Yeah, about that," she began gingerly. "What happened? Why did they tie you up like that?"

She flashed a brilliant, lopsided smile. "That's a campfire story, and we aren't on the road yet. I was thinking we could head through Andale - those guys always let you stay for dinner. We could ask around about your dad, see if we can find any leads. It'll be fun. And it seems like you've got a knack for waltzing into raider gangs. I could always make use of that."

"I don't know," she replied carefully. She hadn't assumed this woman might be dangerous at first, but her unnervingly calm demeanour and that wicked smile had her spiralling further and further into serial killer territory. "Really, I think I'd be better by myself. You seem nice and everything, but-"

"No I don't," she retorted, "that's why you need me at your side. Believe what you want about your vault, I don't care, but I'm telling you right now that your kind don't stand a chance out here by themselves. Not even with that gadget on your wrist. Besides, I have a dazzling personality and charisma that could kill a man. I keep you safe, you patch me up, we have a really great time and you find your dad. There's more in that for me than you know, so don't worry about me feeling inconvenienced." She extended her hand. "Go on. Pretty please?"

With a shy half-smile, she took the stranger's hand and shook it. "Okay, okay, I guess you're right. My name's Grace Arlyn. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," she smirked. "You can call me O'Reilly."