Mika tucked and rolled away from the pepper of gunfire tearing apart the cement wall behind her. She dove inside the nearest doorway, cursing herself for not being more careful. She'd been hoping to make it to that zeppelin, but apparently there was more than just intelligent life lurking in this nuclear wasteland.

She should have assumed that humanity as she'd known it had fallen with whatever had caused this apocalypse. There seemed to be gunmen all over the place, looting and raiding what slim pickings were left. On top of that, there were massive mutated green men and zombie like humanoids with melted faces.

Mika still had no idea how she'd ended up here, in Boston, after the fall of man, but she knew that she had to roll with it, figure out how to survive. The zeppelin seemed a long shot at this point—she needed weapons. Her military training took over as she assessed her surroundings, needing to figure out where her attackers were and take one of them out for their guns.

She peeked out just in time to see a terrified looking man tear into the street, unarmed and disheveled. A laser blast took out one of his kneecaps and he skidded against the asphalt.

"P-please!" he cried, and Mika's eyes widened at the sight of a dark skinned man all in black. He looked like something out of a dystopian novel, some kind of new government agent with his wraparound sunglasses.

His face remained expressionless as he aimed for the man's forehead and pulled the trigger.

It was now or never.

Mika launched herself out of the doorway, blonde hair whipping around her head as she tried to feint out of the way of the laser. How had he reacted so fast? The blast grazed her arm and she hissed, diving forward into his stomach. She simply bounced back onto her ass, and he didn't flinch at all.

"What the hell are you?" she gasped. He didn't look like any of the ghoulies or mutants she'd seen thus far, in fact he looked like he wasn't affected by the radiation whatsoever. He was muscular with flawless skin and his clothes were pristine. Where had he come from? "Are you with whoever is flying the airship?"

He cocked his head, the corner of his lip curving upwards slightly. "Absolutely not," he replied, voice monotone. "Are you the anomaly?"

She shook her head slowly, not at all understanding his question.

"Our intelligence shows an anomaly appeared in this location a few hours ago, biological organism not from this world," he explained. "Very different than the last one."

"If you mean I... woke up here with no idea where I am or how I got here, then yeah, I guess I'm you're anomaly." Mika couldn't help but shrug. "Can you send me back?"

"No," he lowered his gun and held out his hand instead. "I'm X6-88. We need your help."

***

"Robots," Mika cursed under her breath as she slipped into a blue jumpsuit.

She hadn't been far off with her dystopian government assessment, as X6-88 had been an assassin for The Institute. It was a hyper-advanced underground society creating synths, biological robots that could withstand the apocalypse.

The bastards had barely given her any information, telling her they had the means to send her home, but she had to do something for them first.

That something was to go back in time and procure a special module from this company called Vault-Tec on the day the bombs dropped.

"Welcome to Vault 75!" A chipper woman in a white lab coat greeted the small cluster of adults in the changeroom. She consulted her clipboard, and Mika zipped up her suit, slipping her necessities into her utility belt. "You're the primary teachers, yes?"

"Did all the kids make it in okay?" one of the other women asked.

"Yes, everyone is accounted for, don't worry about it!" Miss Lab Coat replied. "It's a good thing we had an escape route inside the school, yes? Right this way!"

Mika made sure to be last as they filed out. They turned left into a large area that resembled a warehouse, full of crates and boxes. She chewed on her bottom lip, knowing which way she needed to steal away from the map X6-88 had given her, but she wasn't sure she could leave the group of teachers to their grisly fate.

"Just this way," Miss Lab Coat seemed far too happy with her murderous intentions, and that sealed the deal for Mika.

She barreled forwards, shoving her companions out of the way, and hit the woman in the back. She shrieked in surprise, hitting the floor, and Mika jerked her arms behind her back, turning to address the shocked group of teachers behind her.

"They're going to kill us," she told them. "They want to do experiments on the children, and they're going to kill all of the adults."

"She's lying, get her off me!" the Vault-Tec employee screeched, but she was cut off by sudden gunfire. Mika ducked, pulling her captive overtop of her, but the shooter wasn't aiming for her; they'd been waiting for their victims to enter the warehouse.

The time traveler shoved her human shield out of the way as she dove for cover, bodies falling and people screaming. She slid across the tile floor, kicking out a grate and army-crawling into the vent she needed to follow to get to her destination.

Her stomach dragged behind her, blood pumping, and she whispered the directions under her breath as she turned corner after corner. Finally she reached the vent she needed, and peered down into a dim room.

Mika swallowed hard, grasping the grate in her hands and gently pushing it out, sliding it under herself and out of the way silently. She crawled out and onto the top of a row of machines, holding her breath before leaping down onto the head of yet another lab coat clad person. He crumpled to the floor with barely a sound, and she grabbed his hair, slamming his head into the tiles with enough force to knock him unconscious.

She stood, turning to the row of computers on her right, but stopped short at the vision in the corner of her eye. The scientist had been monitoring a kid in the next room through a large window.

"Where's my mom?" the kid asked, voice shaking. He couldn't have been more than ten years old, dressed in a little blue jumpsuit that was just like Mika's.

She clenched her jaw and turned back to the computers, tearing apart the smallest one to search for the module she was looking for. She had to finish this mission if she wanted to go home to her non-nuclear apocalypse life. She found a light blue chip, sliding it into the inside pocket of her utility belt.

"Please, I just want to see my mom," the kid pleaded. "I won't fight that electro-thing anymore, if you just let me see her."

Mika cursed, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. They were torturing this kid.

She'd known what they were doing down here. X6-88 had told her. But he'd also told her that she couldn't fix it. Nothing she could do would save these kids, or their parents that were being slaughtered upstairs.

The kid let out a sob. "Please!"

Mika knelt down and took the set of keys from the fallen man's belt, unlocking the door to the kid's room.

"Wh-who are you?" the kid stammered.

"I can at least save one of you," she said, and pulled him into her arms.

She bit down on the switch the Institute had installed in her mouth, and Vault 75 and the year of the bombs dropping melted away.