a whistle fades in the dusty air, as the sound of spurs on their boots meet the gravel. they’re known on record as THE GLASS JEWEL but a few who’ve shared a foxhole or the occasional bottle with them are allowed to call them – COLLETTE DE VEUVE. they are a ANDROID who looks a hell of a lot like RACHEL WEISZ if you squint your eyes. At TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-NINE / FIFTY-FIVE they’ve learned how to survive the wild wild wasteland, making their living as a AN VOLUNTEER @ NEW VEGAS SAFEHOUSE. They carry QUIET DISCRETION with them like an old wound, but their STRATEGIC INSTINCT keeps them alive against better judgment. honor ties them loosely to NO FACTION. if you’re paying any mind, you can see them in the crossfire between CIRCUITRY EXPOSED SAVE FOR A SINGLE FILAMENT — GOLD-THREADED AND HEAT-WARPED AT THE EDGES, and A SINGLE PULSE OF AMBER LIGHT — THE LAST CHARGE SIPHONED FROM A BODY THAT MISTOOK OWNERSHIP FOR DEVOTION. IT FLICKERS AGAINST HER STERNUM, INCOMPATIBLE. IT WAS NEVER DESIGNED FOR PERMANENCE. anyways, their presence is a walking reminder that out here, the old world never really died.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: domestic abuse, pregnancy complications, mob violence, attempted murder, missing person, implied coercion/ arranged marriage, threats of violence, explosive devices, trauma recovery
2022, summer. her smile trembles as her father walks her down the aisle. the organ plays the familiar wedding march, sweet and predictable. she doesn’t really know the man she’s marrying — only that he’s handsome, charming, well-connected, and powerful. a higher up in the only company that matters: vault-tec. married off before her twentieth birthday, she tells herself it doesn’t matter. this is how life works. this is what stability looks like in new vegas society. she clings to his smile and convinces herself it’s enough.
2025, three years later. after trying since her wedding night, she finally holds her first daughter in her arms. her mirror image. her firstborn. the child arrives screaming into a harsh world, but the moment those tiny fingers wrap around her pinky, she feels whole for the first time in her life. her husband stands beside her, and for a brief, dangerous moment, she believes in the fairytale. she believes in the future.
2029, four years later. anger enters. charm fades into temper. love turns conditional. she learns how carefully she has to speak, how quietly she has to move. her husband misses the birth of their second daughter. she labors alone in a sterile hospital room, mother and newborn crying together in the dark. even as she holds the baby close, she feels something raw and restless in the child — a rage she doesn’t understand and can’t soothe.
2035, six years later. her third daughter is born after the hardest pregnancy of her life. bedridden months. silence. isolation. music becomes her only comfort. songs become survival. when the baby hears her first lullaby, her eyes lock onto her mother’s face, wide and calm, and for a moment, the world feels safe again. that quiet connection becomes her refuge from the reality of being married to a man whose power terrifies her.
2069, late spring. she doesn’t learn the truth all at once. it comes in fragments — numbers that don’t add up, accounts that don’t make sense, tuition funds quietly rerouted, “investments” that feel wrong. their daughters’ futures. their security. their education. all of it funneled into vault-tec. not charity. not philanthropy. infrastructure. access. preparation. her family’s safety sold to a corporation preparing for the end of the world. she tells herself there must be an explanation. there isn’t.
2070, early winter. she confronts her husband. calm at first. controlled. asking questions instead of accusations. he doesn’t deny it — he reframes it. calls it protection. calls it foresight. calls it survival. says it’s for the girls. for their bloodline. for the future no one wants to admit is coming. when she refuses to accept it, he doesn’t raise his voice. he doesn’t threaten her. he turns their daughters instead — slowly, carefully, with stories and fear and lies dressed as love. by the time she realizes what’s happening, she’s already isolated inside her own home.
2071, summer. she tries to leave. quietly. carefully. no drama. no scene. just escape. but she never makes it far. they take her before she can disappear — not police, not soldiers, not men in suits. scientists. white coats. clean hands. clinical voices. she isn’t arrested. she’s acquired. transferred. reclassified. her name becomes a file. her life becomes a project. her body becomes a resource.
2072, fall. she isn’t imprisoned — she’s processed. evaluated. sedated. studied. her memories are catalogued. her mind mapped. her body prepared. they don’t speak to her like a person. they speak about her like a system. a candidate. a variable. a prototype. she learns she’s part of a trial program — experimental incubation, long-term hyper-sleep, suspended biological preservation. they don’t call it freezing. they don’t call it captivity. they call it preservation.
2073. she becomes the first successful subject. the first viable trial. the first body sealed into time. she sleeps. she waits. she forgets. the world keeps moving without her.
October 23, 2077. the world ends. she is on earth for her last 55th year when the sky burns. she misses it. never sees the fire. never hears the sirens. never feels the ground shake. the world dies while she sleeps in her chamber, protected from the fall out.
2281. present she wakes up in a vault. cold. disoriented. alive.
her body remembers before her mind does. fear without context. grief without faces. panic without memory. she remembers metal doors. hands pulling her forward. white lights. the belief that her family was behind her. they aren’t. she’s alone in a future that doesn’t know her name. a world that doesn’t remember her face. a timeline that says she shouldn’t exist. and she’s looking for her husband. she’s looking for her daughters in a world that insists they should all be dead.
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