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The Vault had to be some sort of a sick joke, thought Juliet as she dashed down the hallway.
She'd reported to her assigned pick-up location, only to be blindfolded and shuttled to her Vault in the back of a van. For security, they told her. She sat patiently, huddled in a ball inside her auto-locked bedroom as the bombs fell for days, When the security lock finally disengaged, she went to the common area, eager to meet her new neighbors. It was only after the overseer announced the 'special conditions' of the Vault that she realized that it might have been better to stay outside.
One woman. Nine hundred and ninety-nine men. The joke was all on her. She didn't even like men, hadn't dated one since she realized she was gay in high school. And now she'd be forced to spend the rest of her lifetime locked up with them, presumably as some sort of gangbang … sex toy … breeder thing.
Fuck that. She'd go down fighting first. She skidded around a corner, only to be confronted with another horde of men. No escape. Scanning the tunnel frantically, she found a shard of jagged metal lying on top of a crate and snatched it up. Juliet waved the makeshift shiv at her pursuers before holding it to her neck.
“Back off!” she yelled, her voice sounding much more steady than she felt. “Just fucking try it. I'll cut my own damn throat before I'll let you rape me.”
There was a dead silence before one of the men stepped forward. She pointed the tip of the metal shard at him, ready to lunge ahead, before she noticed he was chuckling.
“Hon,” he said, “I think you've got the wrong idea.”
One Year Later
A frantic knocking on her bedroom door woke Juliet from her slumber. She groaned and pulled the covers over her head, but the knocking only grew louder, and she could hear someone shouting her name. It seemed that once more, she was about to be subjected to the ravenous needs of the majority.
“Juliet! There's a radroach in the east wing bathroom!”
She recognized the shouter as Allen, one of her neighbors and closest friends in the Vault. Juliet rolled her eyes.
“Can't somebody else get it? I'm sleeping. Rodrigo was an exterminator, for God's sake. Put him on roach-killing duty for once.”
“We can't find Rodrigo,” yelled Allen. “I think he might be in Jim's room. And Timothy is AWOL too.”
“Fine, fine,” Juliet grumbled, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
“Also, the plumbing in the kitchen needs fixing, and Terrence wants to know when you're going to get started on organizing that Vault softball team,” Allen continued.
“We don't need a softball team,” snapped Juliet. “We're in a Vault. There's no other teams for us to play.”
“It'll be intramural.”
“You realize you guys are just reinforcing ancient stereotypes about lesbians and gay men, right?” asked Juliet, plodding towards the door. “I don't even like softball, and you guys can kill radroaches fine without my assistance.”
“I didn't see you complaining about stereotypes when you were at Antonio's musical last night,” said Allen, smiling as Juliet entered the hallway.
“That's because Antonio was a Broadway director before the war. His musicals kick ass. I was a media consultant, which gives me no special skill in roach-killing or plumbing.”
“You also don't mind it when I cut your hair.”
“Well, you do a good job,” said Juliet, smiling back at Allen.
Of course, she'd rather not be in a Vault with nine hundred and ninety-nine gay men seemingly bent on acting like a group of pre-war divas, but it could be worse, she thought, heading towards the east wing. She was about to turn down the hallway to the bathroom when she heard a faint voice from inside the wall to her left.
“Help! Can anyone help me? I'm trapped!”
Frowning, she pulled out her roach-killing baseball bat and gave the wall a few good smacks. One panel, weaker than the others, crumpled at a corner, and a hand reached out to tear it away.
The man crouched in the tunnel was dressed in a faded Hawaiian shirt and dusty shorts, and had the wild-eyed look of someone who had just escaped from hell.
“Oh, thank God!” he exclaimed as she pulled him out of his hiding place. Juliet looked beyond him and caught a glimpse of a long tunnel. Was there a way out of this place?
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I'm Harry. From Vault 69. And I'm being tormented by lesbians!” Juliet raised her eyebrows. Was this man insane?
“Really,” she said, smirking slightly.
“Really,” the man replied. “I'm the only man in our Vault. Ever since I told them I was gay, they've been forcing me to do all these horrible things. I hate interior decorating, and I can't figure out how to make an appletini. I was a professional hockey player before the war! Why are they treating me like some sort of stereotype?”
Juliet's grin widened. “Reaaaaally.”
And thus Juliet and Harry discovered the tunnel between Vault 68 and Vault 69, ending their personal nightmares and formally merging the Vaults into one happy and remarkably egalitarian post-apocalyptic paradise. After a few years and much general squickiness and use of turkey basters, the first generation of Vault children was born, and some of them made children the more traditional way, and the Vaults were saved.
At least until two hundred years later, when some asshole adventurer opened the Vault door. But that's a story for another day.