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Walkthrough

Tranquility Lane is a VR simulation. You'll appear in it as a ten-year-old child, and you won't have any of your equipment available to you, including your Pip-Boy, and so you won't be able to check your inventory, look at your stats, or view the local map. Instead, you'll only have a Pip-Boy watch, which will show you what time it is.

At first glance Tranquility Lane will look like a friendly "Leave it to Beaver" style world. But it shouldn't take you long to sense the dark undercurrents. That's because the programmer of the simulation, Dr. Braun (aka Betty), is a sadist, and if he's not torturing people then he gets bored -- and he doesn't like to be bored.

That will give you two ways to proceed in the simulation. You can either play along with Dr. Braun and do evil things, or you can work against Dr. Braun and change the way the simulation works.

Working with Dr. Braun

To start out, you should go to the park in the center of the lane (#1), and talk to Dr. Braun / Betty. He'll be thrilled to see you -- "Oh, someone new to play with! What good luck I have lately!" -- and he'll ask you to make Timmy Neusbaum cry. There isn't any way to avoid playing this "game" (assuming that you want to work with Dr. Braun), because Dr. Braun won't answer any of your questions until you do. If games of this nature don't sound like a lot of fun (and they're only going to get worse), then you might want to skip down to the "Changing the Simulation" section of the walkthrough.

Note: You can't kill Dr. Braun / Betty, either. If you attack him then he'll simply kill you, and you'll have to load your game.

You'll find Timmy at the lemonade stand in front of his house (#2). There are a four ways to make him cry:

• You can hit Timmy a few times.
  
  
• You can use your speech skill to convince Timmy that his parents are getting divorced.
  
  
• You can tell Timmy that his parents are planning to send him to military school. For this lie to work, you'll need to pick up the Military School Brochure from the kitchen table inside his house.
  
  
• You can kill one of Timmy's parents and then let him discover the body (he'll wander over eventually).

After completing the first task, when you talk to Dr. Braun he'll allow you to ask him a question. It won't really matter what you ask, although if you ask Dr. Braun where your father is, he'll direct you to the dog "Doc" in the park and suggest that it might look familiar to you.

For your second task, Dr. Braun will ask you to break up Roger and Janet Rockwell's (#3) marriage without killing either one of them. If you talk to the people of the town, or if you read Janet Rockwell's diary (located in the Rockwell's upstairs bedroom), then you'll learn that Janet is jealous of Martha Simpson (#4). This will give you three ways to complete the task:

• You can use your speech skill to convince Janet that you saw Roger kissing another woman.
  
  
• You can bludgeon Martha to death with a Rolling Pin (found in the Rockwell's kitchen), and then tell Roger that Janet did it.
  
  
• You can place Lacy Underwear (found in Martha's bedroom) on Roger's desk in the basement of his house, and then tell Janet about it. From there you can either claim that Roger is having an affair or that Roger likes to wear women's clothing.

After completing the task, you'll get to talk to Dr. Braun again. This time he'll tell you a little bit about your father's visit, and how you father refused to play his games (which is no doubt why he's now a dog). He'll also mention that if you keep playing along, he might release both of you.

For your third task, Dr. Braun will ask you to kill Mabel Henderson (#5), and to make it "an entertaining, well thought-out death." As before, you'll have multiple ways to get the job done:

• You can re-program Mabel's Mr. Handy robot by activating the computer terminal in her kitchen and selecting "Initiate security program" and "Disable security screening." Mr. Handy will then go on a rampage and kill her.
  
  
• You can "fiddle with the chain" of the chandelier in the living room. The chandelier will then fall on Mabel the next time she walks under it.
  
  
• You can "fiddle with the pilot light" of the oven in the kitchen, and then ask Mabel to bake you a pie. This will cause Mabel to walk into the kitchen and blow herself up.
  
  
• You can "push the skate" at the top of the stairs. Eventually Mabel will climb the stairs and fall to her death.

When you return to Dr. Braun after completing the third task, he won't have much to say. He'll just want you to get going on the fourth and final task.

For your last task, Dr. Braun will ask you to pick up the Pint-Sized Slasher Mask and the Slasher Knife (found in the doghouse next to the abandoned house, #7) and to use them to become the Pint-Sized Slasher, "a figure of myth, born of old campfire stories." You'll then need to stay in character and kill off the remaining residents of Tranquility Lane.

You won't receive any fun options for this task; you'll just need to chase down all of the residents and kill them. Fortunately, with the knife equipped, it will only take one or two hits to finish people off. Once you've killed enough of the residents, your quest objective will update, and you'll be asked to return to Dr. Braun one last time. He'll then create a door behind you, and you'll be able to leave the simulation.

Changing the Simulation

At some point after you've spoken to Dr. Braun / Betty (#1), Old Lady Dithers (#6) will come up to you and start a conversation (you can also find her and talk to her). She'll somehow know that she's stuck in an evil simulation, and she'll ask you to put an end to it. She'll then let you know that there's some sort of failsafe terminal in the abandoned house (#7), which will allow you to communicate with the outside world and shut the simulation down.

When you enter the abandoned house, you won't find a terminal, but you will find a few objects that will make odd noises when you activate them. Your goal in the house is to activate the objects in the right order to make the terminal appear. If you activate the wrong object then it will make a quacking noise. If you activate the right object then it will just play a tone.

There aren't any clues for the sequence. Eventually through trial and error (or by reading the solution here), you'll figure out that the right order for the objects is: broken radio, glass pitcher, garden gnome, glass pitcher, cinder block, garden gnome, empty bottle. When you activate the items in that order, the failsafe terminal will appear.

The failsafe terminal will work just like the other terminals you've seen. If you browse through Dr. Braun's entries, then you'll learn of some of the other simulations he's created, and some of the ways he's tortured the other people involved. You'll also see a way to end the simulation.

To escape from Tranquility Lane, you'll need to select "Access ‘Chinese Invasion' program" and then "Initiate ‘Chinese Invasion' failsafe." This will end up killing all of the residents of Tranquility Lane (other than you, Doc, and Betty), but it will leave Betty stuck in the simulation, alone, for eternity. This is the best solution you can get, and killing the residents is probably better than letting them be tortured for another 200 years.

When you exit the abandoned house, you'll witness Chinese commandos storming through the lane and gunning down everybody in sight. You can attack the commandos if you want, but it won't do any good. So just head for the park in the center of the lane (#1), talk to Dr. Braun / Betty if you want, and then go through the door to exit the simulation.

Back in Vault 112

Regardless of the method you use to leave Tranquility Lane, when you return to Vault 112, you and your father will be released from your tranquility loungers. Your father will then come up to you and tell that he's going to return to Dr. Li in Rivet City and tell her what he's learned (that he needs a G.E.C.K. to make Project Purity work), and he'll ask you to come with him. You can tag along with your father or not; either way you'll find him with Dr. Li when you return to Rivet City.

The conversation with your father will complete the quest, and you'll be awarded 600 experience points for your efforts.


1 - Park


2 - Neusbaum Residence


3 - Rockwell Residence


4 - Simpson Residence


5 - Henderson Residence


6 - Dithers Residence


7 - Abandoned House