Thaddeus Blok sneered at the three men, his eyes glowering especially hard at Fred Jupiter. "You want to stay here wiseass? Then keep up with the mouthing off and my boys will see to it that you do, buster." Blok had a wild almost uncontrolled look in his eyes. Beside him Steinman opened his jacket to reveal the handle of some home made weapon, some sort of gun. He made sure Jupiter had seen the gun. The leather-clad Vault Rat smiled horribly and let his jacket close.<br/><br/>It looked bad for the Overseer and his five goons to be moving about the Vault on their own but if Thaddeus had some engineers with him, and better still some staff from the science and medical teams it would look better, as though he were on the case and organising an important task. He curtly ordered Andy Oades and Kevin Mackerson to find someone suitable and they ducked into the science lab and grabbed some staff at random. To their surprise Alta Riley, Amy Saunders and the Vault's senior doctor, Morgan Townsend found themselves being bundled out the door to join the Overseer's team.<br/><br/>"I need the assistance of you ladies now, please," Blok said calmly as though nothing more serious than an electrical fault had occurred in the Vault's wiring. "Down on Level 3, there's important work to be done. Follow my boys."<br/><br/>Kenya Hamilton had already seen Fred Jupiter and grabbed hold of his arm as the three engineers went by, Angela Carling and Bob Burnes bringing up the rear. Kenya dragged Emily with her and soon the five women and three men were travelling down to Level 3 in the med-bay elevator.<br/><br/>On Level 3 the doors slid open to reveal a hive of activity. In the general stores deputies and engineering people as well as ordinary workers and students were stripping the place of useful items to support the barricade that was being built to hold onto this level.<br/><br/>Upstairs there was a dull THWUMP! sound as a heavy explosion rumbled through the Vault. There were screams and the chatter of automatic guns.<br/><br/>"Here they come!"<br/><br/>"The Stairs, they're on the stairs!"<br/><br/>"What about the guys holding Level 2?"<br/><br/>"I'm hit!"<br/><br/>"The restaurant's been taken, everyone's dead!"<br/>“Game Over Man! Game Over!”<br/><br/>The hallways were filled with confused shouts and running people. Panic was starting to take hold, things were falling apart.<br/><br/>"Hold the line!" The booming voice of Sherriff Kane roared. "Hold the barricade! We've the reactors here and the stores and food and water. We stand here! All of us!"<br/><br/>Blok led his motley party of people out of the store-room, along the corridor. At the junction that led down to the engineering and reactor rooms to the left and up to the Level 2 staircase to the right the Overseer and the Sherriff came face to face.<br/><br/>"Sir!" said the Sherriff, then his face clouded over, "What? What are you doing?"<br/><br/>Blok barked, "Out of my way, Kane. Important business. Overseer business."<br/><br/>"What the hell is this?" Kane frowned getting angry.<br/><br/>"This," said Steinman, stepping past Blok and pulling a gun from his jacket and pointing it at Kane's chest, "Is a VIP party on VIP business. Your business Sherriff, is to defend the Vault. Now do your job and we’ll do ours."<br/><br/>"Steinman, well, well, well. I should have known a rat like you would be a part of this. Going to the reactor level access tunnel hm? I'm might have known your sort would rather run than fight."<br/><br/>Steinman continued to point his gun, his hand though was shaking, "Make it easy on yourself Kane, don't cause any trouble. Old Smiley has a hair trigger. Built it myself, and it tends to go off if I get agitated."<br/><br/>Behind Steinman the other Vault Rats made sure that the eight civilians were hauled past the junction of the two corridors and sent down towards the reactor level.<br/><br/>Suddenly a gun went off, smoke coiling from the barrel of Steinman's homemade weapon. Kane, wide-eyed slumped down in the hallway. At once there was a stunned silence as several of the security team stared at Steinman. The shocked pause lasted only a few seconds before there was a shout of "BASTARD!" and a massive blast. Steinman's face dissolved into a red splash as Walt Kruger, up until now a completely ineffective security man, leveled his shotgun at the Vault Rat leader and gave him both barrels at point blank range. The wall behind Steinman was splashed with red gore and his heavy body thudded against it.<br/><br/>With a yell Bob Burns ran back to the intersection his baseball bat ready to swing at Kruger, "Warren!" he shouted, "Fuck!" At the barricade half the men were shooting at the attackers coming down the stairs while the other half were in shock having seen their Sherriff murdered, Steinman's head blown off, and their Overseer doing nothing at all.<br/><br/>Burnes swung at Kruger who dived aside. Another deputy then shot Burnes in the side. He grunted and went down, rolling over and clutching his ribs.<br/><br/>At the front of the collection of civilians Overseer Blok decided now was the time to take his bow and depart this particular stage. Taking a strange looking flat key from a chain round his neck and a 10mm pistol from his Karry-All he bolted down the corridor towards the reactor maintenance tunnel past the red and yellow 'RESTRICTED ZONE', 'DANGER HIGH RADS', 'PROTECTIVE SUITS MUST BE WORN' and 'GOT YOUR RAD-X?' signs. The other Vault Rats grabbed weapons and ran to follow Blok. Dragging the<br/>three engineers and the science, medical and other staff along with them.<br/><br/>Thanks to Kane’s untimely death, Andrew Withers was now the highest ranking security officer. He looked over at Samuel Reemes and said “Go follow them!” If there’s some way out we need to know about it!”<br/>