Escape!

• Enter the Overseer's Office.
• Use the Overseer's computer to access the secret tunnel.
• Escape the Vault

The game finally begins proper. Amata jostles you awake and brings you up to speed on the past three years-well, more like last couple minutes. The most disconcerting news though are that your father has left the supposedly impregnable Vault, and now the Overseer is really pissed. Amata has devised a plan to escape and hands you 10 Bobby Pins and a 10mm pistol with rounds. You are to rendezvous with Amata at her father's computer.

Collect your meager possessions from your room, including a baseball bat, the BB gun, and some health items from the first aid kit. Don't forget to check the dresser, too, for a couple of more nostalgic items. Equip the bat for now-it's a good roach-basher and anything-basher for the first few levels. In the hallway, you are stopped almost immediately by one of the Overseer's guards, who almost just as quickly gets overtaken by Radroaches. You can use this opportunity to run past him, through the adjacent door or beat him over the head with the bat.

Within a few moments of running through the Vault, Butch frantically asks you to help out his mom. You can help him out yourself, bolster his confidence so he storms off to fight off the Radroaches himself or leave his mom to die. Of course, karma gains can be had based on your choices here. Regardless of your decision, you need to get the hell out of here!

You bump into two friendly familiar faces, Officer Gomez and Stanley, who support you in your efforts to escape. Head towards the Vault's Atrium and witness two Vault dwellers rush into the next corridor, where some hostile forces mercilessly take them down. Search the nearby room for a few items. Sneak past the guards or engage them in battle. Rifle their fallen bodies for Vault 101 Security Armor and Vault 101 Security Helmet as well as a number of extra pistol rounds and a police baton. Equip the armor and the helmet for an armor boost.

The only other way you can go from here is through the door that tries to close. A heavy blow with the bat should squash the Radroaches. If you are in need of health, eat up the Radroach Meat you find off their rotting corpses and proceed onward. Remember to collect as much food as you can right now in preparation of the ventures outside the Vault. Further up, you run into the security chief and a distressed Amata who's currently being interrogated by her very own father and one of his goons. You can sneak by them or run in and save her. Don't kill the Overseer if you can help it because he's a vital character in a later side quest.

Inside the room past Amata's interrogation chamber lies Jonas' dead body, which you can loot for a few items. The door to the Overseer's office is locked, but it can easily be broken into with a small grasp of lockpicking. The key to it can also be gotten one of three ways: from the Overseer's corpse, from saving Amata, or from the dresser in the Overseer's room. Once broken into the Overseer's computer room, check the lockers for a variety of items, including the Overseer's Terminal Password--gotten if you didn't off the Overseer earlier.

Unless you're proficient in Science and thus hacking computers, you probably want to go ahead and use the terminal password to gain access to the computer. Order the computer to open the Vault tunnel, and the Overseer's work desk rises in response, revealing a set of stairs leading underground. Continue down and through these dusty corridors, activating a panel here and there, and finally open the Vault door. Make a run for sweet freedom before the guards gun you down!

You can modify your character from his race to his Tag Skills before leaving Vault 101 for good.