Don’t call the number if you’re around other people, though
If you text the number you get a reply from Vault-Tec saying “The next available appointment is 33 weeks from now, please stand by!” (handilycaptured by X user FanaticalGuycos my response hasn’t come through yet). And then the significantly less immersive “Reply Y to get recurring marketing and other texts from FallOut”, which is quite funny. There is speculation that this is just a reference to Vault 33, the vault where main character Lucy was born and raised. On the other hand, 33 weeks from now is November, the month when bothFallout 4andFallout 76came out.
One thing’s for sure: calling the number is disappointing, and will also make people think you’re weird if they overhear it. It’s just a guy screaming for 18 seconds - no background sound effects or anything - and frankly, given the money Amazon is working with, I’d have expected more from both the call and text. It’s a tick in the “probably just a lazy reference to Vault 33 column”. Why even bother if you’re not going whole hog? Well, to capture people for marketing, I guess. Which is, in fairness, very Vault-Tec.
That kind of works with the context of the number appearing in the show, too. It pops up when Walton Goggins' Ghoul, in his pre-radiation incarnation as famous TV star Cooper Howard, does an infomercial for shady Valt-Tec encouraging people to call and secure a place in a Vault today. Knowing what we do about Vault-Tec, would you go Vault or take your chances in the wasteland? I guess Vault. Sure, you might be a human experiment, but you also might end up the hero protagonist on a grand adventure! Fallout (the show) is streaming now on Amazon.
